Originally published December 2016

I've been (figuratively) on a bit of a murderous rampage in video games lately. Who isn't these days, though, considering there are so many games out there with killing as the goal? Except I'm not talking about the "justified" homicide of games like Call of Duty or Battlefield. I've been playing the games where the crime is the goal. I've gone through a majority of the Hitman franchise, I've started a little Hotline Miami, and I recently tried the game Party Hard.

Party Hard feels very much like a mix of the Hitman games and Hotline Miami. However, it's not as good as either of them. Well, it's better than the worst Hitman game, at least. Let's just say it was good enough to warrant a review, but not enough for me to finish it. So here are my Initial Impressions of Party Hard.

Premise Demise

Party Hard is a pixelated mass-murder simulator where you get to play as a serial killer showing up at various parties and systematically removing all the guests from the gene pool. There's a bit of a back story with some cut-scenes played between missions, but the gist of it is: you play as a guy who just wanted to get some sleep, and after the neighboring parties kept him up too long, he snapped and went on a spree. That is until you unlock other characters—which is something that I did not play long enough to do.

Each new level is a new party with a new theme and different tools at your disposal for disposing of the guests. As you go from level to level, the killer is moving across the country. A detective is relaying his thoughts about the killer in the cut-scenes between missions, but not much detail is given. It seems like it is supposed to be a horror noir story, except you get to play as the killer in this scenario.

It's not a bad premise in regards to telling an interesting story, but it all feels a little one-note. A lot of what the detective is saying is all fluff dialogue that doesn't really provide much, except flavor for the text. It's certainly dramatic and it sounds like the detective has been traumatized by the experience, but I never got the impression that his story is going to be that interesting. I would have liked to have seen how the detective's involvement might have changed the game's levels. It would have been a good opportunity to integrate his story more and give me a reason to want to listen to what he was saying. It would have been even more interesting if I could have played as the detective between levels to solve what happened or to plan out capturing the murderer as a method of providing more tools and traps at the same time.

Hardly a Party

Party Hard survives on its premise, but it doesn't thrive when it comes to the gameplay. It's serviceable, and occasionally satisfying, but not as thrilling or fun as Hitman: Blood Money or Hotline Miami.

As the serial killer, you arrive at a party and can do only two things on your own: stab a person and pick up the body to dump it somewhere else. However, each party has about 40 to 60 attendants, and it's your job to eliminate ALL of them. You can't just go around stabbing people left and right because any witnesses will call the cops. If the cops catch you when they arrive, you fail the level.

With such a high body count to achieve, the game gives you a variety of tools based on the level to help clear the party out a bit more. There are various objects with which you can interact to cause the death and mayhem you seek. You can start cars that will run over anything in their path. You can poison the punch bowl. You can light particular rooms on fire. You can electrify dance floors. Each of these little death traps can only be used once per level and it's up to you to use them at the right time. Typically, there's at least one trap that can help get rid of 50% of the group in one fell swoop. However, sometimes, that's not enough.

Party Hard's inherent problem lies with the amount of tools you have in relation to the number of targets. Even if you manage to use that super trap that eliminates more than half the partygoers, the process of taking out the rest can quickly become a tedious affair. There are usually only a handful of other traps you can use that might eliminate a few more guests at a time, and a bunch of other areas on the map where a trap would have been useful. Once all your environmental hazards are used up, the game simply becomes the slow process of waiting for the guests to separate from each other long enough to stab them individually and hide their bodies before getting caught, or to get them to walk away while you set up the next trap. Occasionally, the game helps you out by sending a mysterious dude in a trench coat with poison or stun grenades to help your spree move along. Sometimes, if the police have been called enough times to look at the various bodies you forgot to clean up, they'll randomly select a guest as the likely suspect and take them away. I don't know how this decision is made, but it's happened numerous times.

A lot of the game is slightly random as well. Each level has its set of traps specific to the map, but there are other variables at play that are not always the same when you retry a level. Sometimes, the crowd of party-goers is more congregated in one area than before, Sometimes, there's an entirely different trap you can use. Sometimes, the outside resources you get are completely different. This may be fine in terms of making the game more replayable, but it also prevents players of Party Hard from enjoying what makes Hotline Miami and Hitman so satisfying. It's a lot more difficult to plan out your attack strategy and execute it when the variables shift so frequently and randomly. I'm not against adding a little chaos into the mix to break up the monotony, but I would have preferred that the whole party would have been a big death trap so that the randomness didn't feel like one more annoyance added on to the list of other issues.

Stylistic Slaughter

I don't have too much to say about the presentation of Party Hard other than, meh. There's some cool art in this game with the colorful palette and somewhat referential look to the 80's party style. However, the low-detail, pixelated look doesn't do this game any favors. It seems a little too familiar to so many other games on the market right now. Despite the style of the images in the storyline, the core of the game is nothing special to look at.

The same can be said about the music. The music is constantly repeating itself as you take your time killing everyone at the party. With this in mind, it's surprising the game still doesn't have much of a soundtrack of interest. It's not like the background music playing had to be as bland as it was just because it was constantly repeating. Hotline Miami levels can last a long time and those songs never stop playing between re-tries, but the soundtrack is not nearly as tiring.

Despite the name being Party Hard, and the expectation that a game with that name would have some good music, I muted the game before I made it to the third level.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

Party Hard is a basic, straightforward, simplified alternative to Hotline Miami and Hitman. Unfortunately, in the process of simplifying the mechanics of its contemporary murder simulators, it loses a fair amount of the charm, appeal, and excitement that comes from planning out your assassinations and executing (pun intended). Party Hard might get better as you unlock other characters and new mechanics are introduced, but I lack the patience and interest to make it far enough to find out.

Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments below or on Facebook!

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