Developer: Mutant Games
Publisher: KISS ltd
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux
Tested on: PC
Fist of Jesus – Review
Fist of Jesus is an action-packed beat ’em up indie game developed by Mutant Games. The blood and gore filled game is based on the award winning short-film “Fist of Jesus”. As the game has several biblical characters in it, including a very zombified Lazarus, the game has caused quite an uproar – although the game is just a silly beat ’em up that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Story
The game is based on the award winning short film of the same name and so is the storyline. Jesus has completed the ritual to resurrect Lazarus from the dead but the ritual didn’t quite turn out as planned. Lazaus has risen from the death as a zombie and is infecting the lands. It is your tasks to crawl into the skin of Jesus and Judas to survive the fast-spreading zombie infection.
Graphics
The visual design is rather standard if I may say so. The cartoon styled visuals have enough blood and half eaten body parts for the game to be called gruesome and bloody thus proving itself not to be a family-friendly game. The overall design of the levels are very similar but the game does provide enough variety in the weapons, types of zombies and themes per section for it to become less dull. You’ll be facing cowboys, the Roman Army, Mythological creatures and even Steampunk technology in the 80’s style – all while maintaining the cartoon styled visuals.
Sound
The sound design in Fist of Jesus is a constant loop of whistling and musical instruments. While the tunes are somewhat catchy, they do remind me of the far West more anything – perhaps a wrong theme in a game like this. The tunes are justified when you are playing the “Wild-West” levels or bonus levels but it still feels slightly off when you look at the general theme of the game.
Gameplay
Fist of Jesus looks, feels and plays like an iPad game although it is not a mobile game. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, some may be put off if a game looks like yet another port. It’s most noticeable when looking at the controls of the game. The controller works nicely – except for the fact that you can’t enter a level with it – but some of the controls they mention are simply not working or are mapped completely elsewhere. For example, the game mentions that throwing fish is done with RT while it is really RB. All-in-all, I still prefer the controller, even if it is only partially supported by the game. Setting controls to your own liking can be done before launching the game – a great feature that feels misplaced since you’d need to restart the game over and over again until you’re satisfied with your settings.
As I mentioned before, Fist of Jesus is an action-packed beat ’em up and so you will beat up the incoming hordes of zombies and fight them off with all your might. You’ll be playing as one of two characters, Jesus and Judas. Both have special attacks that will truly help you survive the brain eating undead. Jesus can make bread that often also creates throw able fishes, explosions that will explode surrounding enemies and a wall of fire. Judas on the other hand has one of the coolest abilities possible – he can do a kameha! Surely you’ll remember this move from Dragonball Z? Other than that, he can also summon large, pointy stars and a kiray that will increase the ray damage. Besides these super awesome and rather effective abilities, both characters can also wield weapons. All of this is truly necessary if you’d want to survive the zombies, their mini-bosses and ultimately the big bosses.
The game provides a large variation of weaponry to use on your quest to stay alive. You can throw fish to special kinds of zombies so that may explode but you can also use a Swordfish to ‘stab’ the incoming horde of zombies. There’s even more standard types of weapons such as a swords and revolvers but my favorite kind is the cowboy whip and the shotgun. Every weapon has a duration time – or a limited time of use – and will vanish after a short while. New weapons can drop from the zombies you’ve slain but there can also be interesting weaponry hidden in the crates scattered across the levels. During your combat with the incoming waves of zombies, weapons are not the only items that can drop. You’ll be able to pick up food to restore a small percentage of health, holy grails that refill the Special Attacks power bars, multipliers, green XP potions that look poisonous but are truly a God’s gift and much more. Lastly, the zombies can drop coins, which are called Denarii, in many forms and colors. With the Denarii, the game provides some sense of RPG as you can unlock special abilities and upgrade your powers which can get costly. Additionally, you can buy the relics to complete your amazing relic collection which in turn will grant you even better upgrades.
Replayability in Fist of Jesus is quite farfetched but there is some. You can replay all the previous levels to gain more Denarii and improve your abilities or you can simply replay the levels in order to beat your own highscore. Fist of Jesus also provides quite a lot of achievements.
Conclusion
Fist of Jesus is less controversial than The Binding of Isaac, in fact the game doesn’t take itself serious and that’s noticeable with all the references. The gameplay is fast and action-packed and this only ups the fun of it. While the does looks and feels like a port from a mobile game, it doesn’t reduce the fact that the game is simply a great and fun experience. Those who cannot enjoy a healthy dose of humor or a mobile game should stay away from this title but those who can enjoy themselves for hours with such games should definitely take a look at this hilarious title.
Fist of Jesus - Review,
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