Hatred: A Christmas Story

Introduction

Hatred: A Christmas Story is described by it's developer as a parody game. Though, in my opinion the game feels more like a dark comedy then a parody. Though, I'm not familiar with the source material the game is meant to be a parody of. So, my ability to judge the quality of this game as a parody is non-existent. Still, the game can be approached as a dark comedy considering it involves a murderous Santa Claus that operates much like Robot Santa from Futurama.

Story

You take on the role of a genocidal Saint Nick who has decided to forgo stuffing the stockings of naughty boys and girls with coal and has decided to eliminate them all together through the usage of firearms and melee weapons. Of course, if you kill anyone that isn't on the naughty list, its game over. So make sure you save your bullets and ax blows to the head for those that truly deserve it such as Timmy, a rampant jaywalker.

Gameplay

On the gameplay side of things the game is a bit of a mess to be honest. The issues start with the control layout and just snowball from there. The game utilizes no less then five buttons which is an awful lot for a game where you basically just run around stabbing people. Though the real heart of the control issues is that to pick up loot you need to tap on the enter key which is on the opposite side of the keyboard from all of the other buttons your using to command Santa.

Another major issue with the game is that it's near impossible to do a quick turn around and fire in this game and manage to hit your intended target. The game can't seem to handle a quick turn, shoot, and run action and will usually send the bullet in the opposite direction of where you intended. And if it doesn't go in the opposite direction there is still a decent chance that it will go in one of the other wrong direction. Of course, the issues with guns don't stop at aim, but also continue when it comes to the accessories for your firearms as well since they appear to be equally effective on melee weapons.

Another oddball issue with the game is sometimes your attacks don't appear to register. And, I'm not sure what the cause of this issue is, but it doesn't seem to last for long and didn't really hinder me in any shape or form, but it is an odd bug none the less. Of course, it's not the only odd bug. Another strange issue is that enemies often times appear to be unable to walk over a tile where another enemy was killed.

This isn't to say everything about the game is bad, but the mechanics are so flawed that your practically forced to either slowly waddle through this game utilizing a firearm or take the plunge and sell your ammo and firearms for an ax instead. And while you could argue Santa Claus running around like a common ax murderer is funny in a dark kind of way. It also undermines the idea of this game being a shooter.

Graphics

Graphically speaking the game is passable, but feels a bit sloppy. One of the more notable issues with the game is that one of the enemies is located on a tile that is impossible to reach while another NPC is located behind a groove of impassable trees. I've also had an enemy sprite evade my attack and then jump into an area that was inaccessible to the player. Another odd design choice I noticed was that one of the stone buildings contains a lot of holes in the floor, but the tiles containing the holes would indicate that they are part of a wooden floor.

Sound

Sound wise the game is interesting I guess. The title screen utilizes a song from Futurama about Robot Santa while the main game utilizes music created by the band, Metallica. It's definitely an odd choice considering the main character. I'd honestly expected the game to utilize various Christmas songs in order to create a dark joke about the cheerful nature of the music in contrast to the events that are taking place on screen.

Conclusion

Hatred: A Christmas story is a rather poor game all things considered. This isn't to say the project doesn't have some value, but all of the flaws surrounding the firearms just make me want to go back and play something like Pastlife: Legend of Eloria. The game is in desperate need of refinement. As it stands I can't recommend this title to anyone unless there looking for something short, morbid, and plays poorly.