KIBORG: Arena feels like a throwback in many ways, which I really like. It’s a free-for-all prologue to the upcoming cyberpunk punch game KIBORG. The titular arena is a large room where you, a large man, beat up a large number of enemies. You have to hit a gong between waves to trigger the next one, and this felt like a nice foreshadowing hint that every problem you encounter in Kiborg can be solved by quickly moving your fist towards troublesome objects, which turned out not to be so far from the truth.
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Well, mostly. The first of the aforementioned throwbacks is the rhythm combat from the line of cape-em-ups that began with Batman: Arkham Asylum, with a bit of charming homework copycat Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor mixed in. Er, just imagine I’d done the throat thing when I wrote Mordor. There’s a lot of timed, telegraphed parrying, with room for melee combos in the meantime. But I’d say the cohesive atmosphere of the thing goes back even further. The “big bald guy leads a resistance movement on a prison planet” setup immediately reminded me of Escape From Butcher Bay, but the whole thing mostly has the feel of a freewheeling 2000s action game. I’m not sure it’s enough to award the ur-7/10 from back then, but that’s the general impression.
As far as I can tell, this is Moscow-based Sobaka Studio’s first foray into third-person action after a series of top-down shooters, and I think they’ve done a lot right. The enemies don’t seem to attack as frequently as they did in the Arkham games or Shadow Of Mordor, and you don’t have a vault, so brawls don’t flow as smoothly. Still, the violence is vigorous, meaty, and a few other words that can describe either a good in-game fight or premium cat food. There’s a huge upgrade tree and scoring system to keep you in the arena, as well as a ton of brutal weapons, each with unique movesets. My favorite are dual-hit brawlers, although shovel is a close second.
To bring back some of the missing fluidity, there’s a sprint upgrade for heavy and light attacks that lets you slither across the arena and deliver a powerful kick to the face. That’s the best area! There’s also a crappy pistol, but I’m not going to use that when I have a shovel, right? Ranged enemies are also more of a nuisance than an interesting challenge, as they force you to break your flow and thrash around wildly like a weird raccoon. Oh well. It’s free here anyway, so you don’t lose much by trying. Warning: the tutorial froze on me a few times, so maybe just jump right in and mash buttons until something dies. Most of them contribute to that, anyway.
