Essentially a sequel to the Drunken Fist games, Hot Blood is humorous take on the single player brawler.
Hot Blood uses the same engine, visual style, and overall gameplay of Drunken Fist right down the moveset, drinking a beverage to restore health, and the purposely floaty camera and play control. The biggest difference comes from the level structure. While the Drunken Fist games were contained within linear stages, Hot Blood takes place entirely in a mall composed of sections. The goal is to clear all sections/rooms of zombies to reunite with your boyfriend. Unfortunately, this openness is the game’s biggest inconvenience. Since there is no map, and movement is restricted to slow, clumsy movements, navigating the mall for rooms you might have accidentally missed can become tedious towards the end game.
Trophy hunters will also want to take note as it doesn’t take long to unlock the Platinum. This is because combat remains simple but humorous. With one button to punch and another to kick, fighting is simple and straightforward. Items can also be tossed at the brain dead zombies for each pickings and weapons like baseball bats and chainsaws can make easy work of all enemies. The difficulty remains low with spikes that come from relentless bosses that can wipe you out quickly if not careful. But there are many health restoring soda bottles to collect and use on demand when health gets low.
Combat is repetitive, loose, and stupidly funny by design. Punching a zombie with a simple combo could cause them to explode, leaving behind a squishy blood pile and eyeballs rolling on the floor. Without these ridiculous flourishes, this low-cost downloadable game would be a simple, one-note brawler… Well, it is a simple one note brawler, but the dumb finishers never get old, giving this game that extra bit of spice it so desperately needs. However, the floaty camera started to make me seasick after an hour of game time. At max, it only takes a few hours to clear and the game auto-saves with each cleared room.
Instead of playing as a drunk hillbilly like in the Drunken Fist games, Hot Blood let’s the player control a cheerleader. Defeated enemies drop money and this loot can be used to purchase new outfits for this young lady. Unfortunately, these outfits are cosmetic only but provide incentive to unlock them all to earn that Platinum.
Like the Drunken Fist games before it, Hot Blood has been purposefully designed as a low-budget, simple, stupid, absurd beat’em up. There is no replay value. There is no depth. There isn’t a whole lot of variety either. But it does have stupid humor that will undoubtedly cause some memorable chuckles along the way.
SCORE: 6.5/10
Don’t Forget About: Crab Fight
Better Than: Neko Journey
Also Play: One Finger Death Punch 2
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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