Anger Foot Review

 Anger Foot is a single-player first-person "booter" developed by Free Lives and published by the always awesome Devolver Digital. This pair have worked together before with games such as Broforce,GORN… uh, ohh… (cough) Genital Jousting (cough). With significantly less uncensored genitals, this game is all about kicking ass, kicking doors, and getting sweet kicks. What’s more to say? Just the name alone was enough to excite me so let’s stomp on some thugs and get some heads rolling.

Welcome to Shit City (yes, that is the real name). It is a hellhole where everyone is part of a gang and crime is law, with four of the biggest gangs ruling the city while working under the Crime Minister (such an awesome name). Too bad for them, the hero- well, vigilante of this game, Anger Foot, lives for this and will happily (erm, and angrily) deliver his foot up each and every one of their asses in order to get back his collection of Preemo shoes. The story is fairly simple, but Anger Foot revels in its premise. It does not hold back on the sheer ridiculousness of Shit City as you’ll see many things that will either gross you out or make you laugh. It is awesome and stupid, and you can’t help but love it. As someone who tries to act like an upstanding citizen in most games, I found myself kicking everyone in the face after talking to them with no consequence. Hey, crime is the law.

Oh, and special mention goes to the thumping soundtrack. It’s intense and really pumps you up as you rampage through levels. If you decide to stop and enjoy the music… well, you might die, but it’ll be a nice death as enemies dance on your corpse (at least they don’t keep shooting).

Drawing inspiration from games like Hotline Miami, Anger Foot is very fast-paced, with levels that rarely go on for longer than five minutes. You’ll be using a combination of guns that you pick up from dead enemies and your almighty foot to kill gangsters and reach the end of the level. As much as Anger Foot can deal out horrific amounts of violence with just his left foot alone, he can’t take more than three pistol shots before dying, and enemies will be packing a lot more than handguns. Plus, melee is a one-hit kill. You will die just as fast as most enemies, but luckily a restart is only a button press away. However, if you want to change shoes, you’ll need to back out of the level and select it from the map menu, which is a little annoying. Maybe I would’ve liked an option to change shoes at the death screen but it’s fine. Still, you’re definitely encouraged to not stop until everyone is dead and you’ve made it to the goal.

But just getting to the end of the level isn’t enough. When you start the game, you’re barefoot (the horror), and with Anger Foot being the only sneakerhead I know of in gaming, you might want to get some nice shoes. They’re more than stylish feet protection, they have a variety of abilities and buffs that can change how you play a level. From revives, charge attacks, uppercuts, and exploding doors, you’ll wish you had more than two feet, as you can only have one pair on at a time. These shoes are unlocked by beating a boss or getting enough stars earned from challenges, and not every challenge is possible on a first playthrough, so you’re encouraged to experiment, try different shoes and strategies, and come back once you’re better at the game or have the right sneakers. Some challenges deliberately contradict each other, like one requiring a certain number of headshots, but another wants you to only use your feet. You might tear your hair out over trying to complete a challenge that’s not possible at the moment, but they can be really fun. Here’s a tip on those “feet only” challenges: throwing your gun doesn’t void the challenge.

And that’s everything about the main game, but how does it hold up in terms of performance? Well, I had my settings on High and it kept everything at a nice and smooth 60 FPS, with only small drops in performance where everything began to explode and notable drops on some outdoor environments. Anything that needed to be loaded only took a few seconds, and other than some hilarious ragdolling, I didn’t encounter any glitches. However, I think there are some level design issues. Some gaps you have to leap over are only barely possible, requiring jumping at a specific point in order to make it, and even then might not land where intended, like a small ledge in the level geometry. Sometimes it’s a last-second save, and at other times you’re just above a killzone. It’s made worse if you use the Holy Sandals and get revived… in the same place, right above the killzone. You also might suffer from sensory overload, given how some levels will have so much stuff happening if you decide to go fast.

Let me be blunt as kicking down the door to splatter some dude with a shotgun and a face that’s flipping you off: Anger Foot is fun. It’s brutal, funny, and fast as you tear through the streets of Shit City, dying and trying again. Any anger you might feel from repeated failures can be focused on killing fast and kicking more ass. This is the type of game that doesn’t want you waiting around too much, just kill and go as you please and have a great time while at it.

Anger Foot is available now for PC via Steam.