Game Title: Gori: Cuddly Carnage
Platform: Xbox Series X
Release Date: 29th August 2024
Developer: Angry Demon Studio
Review copy supplied by publisher

What’s Gori: Cuddly Carnage about?

You are Gori, an ultra pet cat created by a company called cool toyz incorporated and the world around you is falling apart and you with the help of your skateboard called F.R.A.N.K and AI called CH1-P must help rid the world of the evil toys in the adorable army. You fly about the world on your skateboard using it like a blade under you attacking all the bad toys cutting them apart with guts and blood flying everywhere. There is no shortage of gore in Gori: Cuddly Carnage which lives up to its title as you perform numerous combos of carnage on the games foes. Additionally to the Gore and Guts in the game there is other mature elements like a lot of swearing and other mature created content making the game currently a M for mature content classification rating.

During your gameplay you will also collect money from ATMs and killing enemies which you can then use in vendor machines situated around the various world stages you visit where you can upgrade your weapon and health and fuel levels. You can also increase the amount of rockets or projectiles you can fire at any given time in succession and you can update your shield patterns by by purchasing new ones at the vendor also as well as skins for your player and even extra lives.

You must rescue professor Y who was the one who saved Gori when they tried to exterminate him as a failed experiment and was the only one who seemed to like Gori. There is various cutscenes during gameplay to show this as it portrays Goris escape and Professor Y’s abduction. As you progress you get a bigger spaceship to work out of that has your friendly AI plugged in helping you throughout. In this ship is doors that require a number of keys to open also that can contain outfits for Gori or open training or more challenging areas. Key parts can be found along the game arenas while you skate around and usually find them easily enough through normal progression. The skateboard grinding alone rainbow bars is similar to the ones in ratchet n clank a rift apart on PlayStation for reference. We have a 4 hour plus video of gameplay available on our Youtube channel which i have added below.

What’s the combat and controls like?

The controls in Gori: Cuddly Carnage start off pretty basic with just needing the usual X, A and B been the jump attack and dodge buttons but do open up the more weapons or moves you earn or buy throughout the game. You then start to get some more combinations for other moves including a type of finishing move that depends on what angle you press RB at that finishes off most enemies and awards you the player with health drops or extra cash. Controls did feel unresponsive at times and felt like i wasn’t getting the desired response and dying as a result, mostly on the running events to escape a obstacle coming at you like some common temple run type games. Since Gori: Cuddly Carnage is hack and slash type game you will find yourself just button bashing most the time and the controls are not complicated because of this. You can also toggle a option in settings that allows you to fight holding down the attack button instead of mashing your buttons if you want which is nice.

How does the game look graphically?

The game looks great in what details it does show but doesn’t really show much on screen so graphically it seems a little lack luster with not many artifacts or moving parts on screen probably because it’s pretty linear but doesn’t take too much away from the title however as it looks great at what you do see. The Game i believe is using the Unreal Engine but not sure if it is 4 or 5. There is no ray tracing that i could see but that doesn’t mean there is no ray traced features like lighting and more on the PC version or other platforms but i did not see any mention of raytracing on Xbox Series X. There is 3 graphic modes available in Gori: Cuddly Carnage which is listed below.

• Balanced Mode – 4k 60 FPS
• Quality Mode – 4k 30 FPS
• Performance Mode – 4k Upscaled 120 FPS

During my playthrough, i used the Balanced mode and it looked great and not sure if the performance mode requires VRR or is just using some sort of AI upscaling like AMD’s FidelityFX, which again i saw no options in settings that mentioned this. There is also a Gamma slider and motion blur option for use if you choose to use them. Lighting and particles on screen looked just fine and the blood splatter is not overkill which is nice, but you can change the blood colour in settings if you choose. There is also a photo mode so you can snap up to your hearts content with filters and other features.

Progression

Progression in Gori: Cuddly Carnage is about as straight forward as platformers can get. You kill enemies and earn cash for killing them and also collect a fuel that you use for performing attacks and power moves so you must power up your board by these batteries dropped or grinding on rails and billboards can also replenish this fuel also. You update various attacks making them stronger and also can increase health and fuel levels by buying upgrades also. You fight different versions of unicorns throughout and then usually fight bosses at the end of rounds that vary from a jack in the box to huge eyeball. Each of the bosses usually have a specific arena that has obstacles and puzzles that you must figure out to defeat them. You also obtain missile shooting abilities that you can also skin to look differently like changing them to bananas and can also skin up your shield you get also with different designs.

Conclusion

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is a run of the mills platformer like others before it like ratchet n clank or Jax & Daxter but with more of an adult theme, but with the usual great gameplay that comes with 3D platformers. The game plays well and the combat was fun and the game looks great graphically. It’s a pity it was short and doesn’t offer much replay value but i really enjoyed my playthrough the game and if you like platformers, it’s definitely one for your collection.