Alphonse Harding is n’t a soldier ; he ’s a life artillery .
That ’s by brutal pattern . The tortured Cuban sandwich ofEl Paso , Elsewheredeveloper Strange Scaffold ’s late game , the spectacularI Am Your Beast , was engineered to be a strength of nature through a career of military service as a secret agent . Those years of battue shape him into something grotesque ; he ’s a mix ofJohn WickandPredator , wiping out entire squads with terrifying speeding and efficiency . But there ’s one matter that Harding is n’t : the military ’s leashed pet . If it ’s a wildcat they want , then it ’s a creature they ’ll get . Be careful what you like for .
Over the class of its unrelentingly energetic three - hour runtime , I Am Your Beastputs a military industrial complex that turns humans into war simple machine on test . And it does that by grant agency back to those victims , with Harding gain the power to be judge , jury , and executioner . That makes for one of the most thrillingfirst - soul shootersI’ve played in years , and one that does the impossible : finding a way to square its political commentary with confidently fun ultraviolence .
War machine
Everything inI Am Your Beasthappens at breakneck speed , include its story setup . Harding , who has been in retirement for six blissful years , finds himself sucked back in when his old superior general , Burkin , calls him back for “ one more occupation . ” Harding rejects the crack , so Burkin sends the full force of the Covert Operations Initiative — the same secret organisation Harding served as a hired accelerator — after him . alas for Burkin , the COI trained Harding a littletoowell .
In between codex calls that advertise that story forward through fashionable typography , Harding must do away with COI team and sabotage their operations . That happens via collation - sized fighting encounters where musician scare off through compact levels and everlasting objectives like destroying planet or simply wipe out everyone on the function . I Am Your Beastfirmly belongs to a subgenre of action - puzzle hybrid likeHotline Miami , games that are as much about reckon out a staring route through waves of foe as they are frivol away them down — and frankly , I Am Your Beastmay be one of the best to ever do it .
Its secret weapon is fluidness . fight is designed to always keep histrion move and hitting buttons rather than hiding in the shadows . Gunplay itself is sickly satisfying thanks to some strong feedback , as red X ’s flash over an enemy every clock time Harding lands a snappy headshot . Shooting is only one dick in Harding ’s arsenal , though . When a gun ’s clip is empty , he can toss it at an enemy to stun them and execute them with a stomp . He can nab a foeman ’s gun out of the melodic phrase after it goes flying from their lifeless hand , straight off stick back into action without needing to plunder a body . A fast dash button have him scramble up Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , where he can jump down on a COI agent ’s capitulum like Mario and leave them in a bally heap . Now ideate stringing all of those action at law together , one after the other , over a whirlwind 60 moment of violence .
While it took me a few levels to get the bent of it , I quickly found the stream of its first - person John Wick hook . I leap down onto an foeman to toss off them and grab their tongue , which I then flip at another federal agent to send their shotgun flying into my hands . It ’s a juggle act , one that each degree is like an expert design to take advantage of . Rather than give player completely linear maps with one solution , many of the levels strategically place weapons and environmental chance out that fight me to experiment . possibly I ’ll shoot down a beehive to kill two enemy instead of wasting multiple bullets on them . And rather than test to pick off a sniper from afar , maybe I ’ll take a bot shoot at an explode blood-red barrelful near him . Each level is one magnanimous combat teaser that can either be cautiously plotted out or solve with on - the - fly front thinking .
What especially impresses me , though , is that the satisfying action never feels at betting odds with its sharp critique of the military industrial complex . Games likeSpec Ops : The Linehave take shots at the horrors of war before . But it still feels implicated with being entertaining — a sequence where players set in motion unlimited grenade out at foeman while they hang off the side of a truck feels hollow next to its sobering depiction of white phosphorous . It ’s hard to make any effectual command about violence in a secret plan that ’s still attempt to deliver “ fun ” action .
I Am Your Beastcomes at that trouble from a nuanced overture . Harding is n’t a tool for the governance kill inexperienced person for oil . alternatively , he turn the dick of the craft back against the warfare machine . He ’s only taking orders from himself , twist around the often - submissive frame-up of military action games and turn it into a revenge fantasy about shoot the system down through its own hubris . That ’s still a little refutable ( if Harding was a victim of the COI , then are n’t all of the federal agent he ’s thirstily killing similarly sinless ? ) , but it ’s an efficient elbow room to spin military action paladin propaganda on its head and bend it into evacuant requital .
All of that happens in a whirlwind few hours that I wo n’t shortly leave . I Am Your Beastis a true thrill from start to finish , from its cinematic - layer bent piece like a climactic chopper battle to its pulse - pounding soundtrack . with child - budget video plot have long try out to hone the ultimate power fantasy , but Strange Scaffold pull it off with a fraction of the budget . It ’s a secret plan where I truly do feel like a arm of mass destruction — and , for once , my target area deserves to be on the other destruction of that top executive .
I Am Your Beastis out now on PC .
