Is this meow-tiful?
Humanity has been destroyed – and it’s up to Gori, along with his deadly but wise-cracking sentient hoverboard, F.R.A.N.K, and morose AI companion, CH1-P, to shred and slay the evil Adorable Army!
Gori: Cuddly Carnage has to be one of the most bizarre games I’ve played in a long time. You play as a cat called Gori who rides a talking hoverboard while destroying evil unicorns and other messed up toys. It feels as if Borderlands, Devil May Cry and Tony Hawk were put into a blender. It sounds nuts, but it somehow works…
The combat is fun, fluid and rewarding. It’s easy to get to grips with, as is using the hoverboard to move around each level. You will need to kill enemies and grind on rails to replenish F.R.A.N.K’s fuel meter, which empties as you boost or use strong attacks on enemies.
Gori gets a few melee weapons and eventually a shield and grenade launcher that can fire up to 3 shots before needing time to recharge or if you find a charging station. You’ll need to latter to shoot things like eyeballs and switches to activate platforms to progress. Each level has a boss at the end, all of which are unique in their design and they aren’t a pushover.
The best part about Gori is it’s humour. Enemies are introduced in Borderlands-style intros, F.R.A.N.K is essentially a hoverboard Claptrap, complete with profanity filter that you can actually upgrade to disable. The dialogue is brilliant with zingy one-liners, as well as being plenty of nods to older games, there’s even a rip-off of the laughing dog from Duck Hunt in one stage. There’s plenty of gore and violence in the game as you would expect from a game called Gori, but you can tone it down slightly if you are squeamish…though some characters are definitely nightmare fuel.
The visuals are superb, the game can run up to a solid 120 FPS if you have a compatible TV. The levels are well designed, characters are disturbingly well animated. Voice-acting is hilarious, the soundtrack is full of superb songs throughout and I was lucky enough not to come across any bugs apart from the game crashing once or twice, but there is a day one patch coming that will hopefully address this. There’s also a free demo out if you want to try to see if it’s for you before it comes out.
The Verdict
Gori: Cuddly Carnage has incredible humour, solid controls, unique characters and amazingly addictive combat. Definitely one of 2024’s most uniquely enjoyable games to date.