Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse [Switch]
Developed in conjunction by Explosm and Skeleton Crew Studios, Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse is a colourful point-and-click adventure that is definitely not for little kids. The original Cyanide & Happiness web-comic has been ongoing since 2005, covering a wide range of topics with a darkly humourous spin, progressing into animation and multiple game releases. Funded through Kickstarter, Freakpocalypse sees you play as Cooper McCarthy – AKA Coop – a soon-to-be high-school graduate, who everyone makes fun of.
Evil Dr. Dropout, with his stoopid goop, plans to turn all of your classmates into brainless morons, and it’s up to Coop to stop him. With an introduction to movement from Psionic Psteve, and an in-depth look at your Notebook for everything you could possibly need (as well as the ability to view the whole Tutorial again). Eventually, you wake from your doodling-daydream to your teacher shouting at you in class - and the story progresses on through the school, with additional areas to explore such as your grandmothers house, the local pizzeria and more. You can interact with lots of items and characters you come across, with the ability to Touch, Examine, Talk or Brain, depending on the context. Many of the things you’ll interact with are fairly minor, causing Coop to make light jokes, but won’t actually have much impact on the gameplay. Puzzles are simple to figure out due to this, as items are straightforward to find, and there’s no real confusion in what inventory items are to be used for; whereas similar games like Leisure Suit Larry definitely leave you scratching your head.
Bright, recognisable C&H style, with thick outlines on all of the stick-figure characters to make them stand out against the backdrops. The introductory animation is really well done, and the visuals throughout the game are gorgeous - in a disgusting yet alluring kinda way. You’ll find loads of references scattered throughout, from finding the Necronomicon from Evil Dead (and uttering the forbidden Klaatu Barada Nikto phrase!) to a wearable Jason mask from Friday the 13th, it’s fun to investigate absolutely everything you can - but it sure is time-consuming, as practically everything can be interacted with. The soundtrack is decent, with simple backing tracks for much of the exploration and great emphasis on tone for each of the cutscenes. Voice acting is well done, injecting even more humour to the game.
As mentioned, there’s tonnes of humour - that childish-adult humour that’s filled with poop jokes, satire and a buttload of dark humour - but that’s to be expected, and works brilliantly against the simple, cartoony aesthetic. There are little offhand comments about school shooters, segregation and more that catch you off guard at times, but in a way similar to South Park - the satirical, controversial manner in which everything is said and done works. I can imagine a lot of parents unwittingly buying this for kids, if they haven’t heard of Cyanide & Happiness previously, and being shocked with the content. It’s rated as PEGI 16, so it definitely doesn’t shy away from what it is.
Lots of issues with slow loading times, and it’s a game that suffers greatly due to any Joycon drift issues (although this isn’t the game’s fault), so make sure to either play on a controller in docked mode - or with Joycons that haven’t yet suffered the drifting fate. Aside from this, controls are fairly simple - and button prompts are shown on screen for any interactions with characters. You’ll have to be creative with items in your inventory, using them to diffuse (or engage in) situations in a myriad of ways, and certain items can be combined for additional effects. It’s a little too simple at times, and progressing through the whole of the story doesn’t take long - but interacting with everything does.
You can collect different costume pieces for Coop to dress up in, broken down into Hats, Faces and Bodies, and these are found around the world; sometimes in unexpected places, or gained by interacting with characters. There’s a bunch of achievements available for completing tasks to give you something to aim for, including collecting all of the costumes, finding Jesus (three times) and interacting with certain things multiple times. Sadly it feels like it is missing a lot, and knowing that there are two planned sequels really makes you feel like content has been held back from this story. But if you love C&H, and you like the sound of all of this, then you can grab it for £15.99 on the Switch eShop.
In the end, we decided to give Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse the Collecting Asylum rating of 7/10.
Have you played C&H: Freakpocalypse yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to EvolvePR for the Cyanide & Happiness: Freakpocalypse Switch review code!
