Paint the Town Red [Xbox]
Developed by South East Games, Paint the Town Red is a chaotic melee combat game that has some hilarious rag doll physics and a variety of game modes in its arsenal. The modes available are: Scenarios, consisting of various levels that can be played in both Standard and Challenge mode, with modifiers that can be assigned to change things up; Beneath, which is a huge rogue-lite adventure that takes you deep underground, with a variety of different unlocks available as you progress - this is the real ‘meat’ of the game; and finally, there’s Arena, which is as expected, with challenge arenas for you to go up against AI enemies in waves, with the difficulty of enemies as well as other hazards increasing the further you go.
In Scenarios, the aim of the game is to kill all your enemies as quickly as possible, wielding any of the weapons at your disposal, from random items found around the levels, from pool balls in the Bar, harpoons in Pirate Cove and pump-action shotguns in the Prison. There are different enemies that you’ll face, from standard brawling enemies to higher-difficulty bosses such as the Katana Boss and the Muscular Cowboy, and these will all require you to think about your strategy to complete each level as efficiently as possible.
As mentioned, the meat of the game is Beneath, a vast rogue-lite adventure where you can choose from the different loadout types available: Brawler, Warlock, Spectre, Vanguard and an unlockable fifth option, with each having different skills and abilities. As well as the main facility, that allows you to explore a bit before you progress Beneath, into the danger, there are six different level settings for you to explore, each with multiple stages within. As you progress further Beneath, you’ll come across a wide variety of enemies ranging from other humans, to gem like creatures and terrifying Lovecraftian nightmares. There’s a shop that you can access at certain points, where you can spend the gold and Purple Crystals known as Energy you’ve earned to unlock powerful upgrades as well as to replenish your health, but aside from here you can also find the occasional plinth with single items or health that you can purchase whilst out and about. Upon death, you’ll see a quick breakdown of all the enemies you’ve killed, as well as whichever enemy you succumbed to. From here, you can easily start a new run, either in the same class or as an alternate, or you can choose to return to the facility.
The blocky voxel-bodies combined with the weirdly detailed faces makes for a humorous juxtaposition, and the over the top, cubed blood splatters and cracked skulls revealing chunks of brain add to the comedy. It’s gory and violent, but in the most hilariously tame of ways. Enemies react to attacks, with their faces contorting in pain, and often holding their hands over the holes pouring blood out of their heads. Whether you’re playing in the Scenarios, Beneath or in the Arenas, enemies can find reasons to attack each other as well as having beef with you, so it can be useful to suss out your surroundings to allow enemies to take damage from each other before you open yourself up to attack.
The sound effects are satisfying, with plenty of bone-crunching as you whack enemies with baseball bats and bar stools; slicing and dicing as you wield katanas and machetes; and blood splatting all around whether you’re using melee weapons or any of the guns you find - and with the levels growing more and more soaked in blood the more damage you do, the game’s title is very fitting. The soundtrack is decent, with much calmer tunes playing before the violence breaks out - turning to more pumped up tracks when the blood starts to flow.
In the Beneath mode, there are a wide variety of things to keep a look out for, from additional weapons, to upgrade points as well as unexpected enemies that will catch you off guard. There’s a Pursuer, who will - as the name suggests - pursue you through the levels of Beneath, an ever-present threat that can appear at any time, as well as being able to be summoned via the shops, that will insta-kill you as well as any other enemies they come into contact with. This is a fun mechanic to play around with, as you can make use of the Pursuer by guiding them into groups of enemies, getting them to do the dirty work for you - but this can easily backfire if you trap yourself in a tight space with them following behind you.
Paint the Town Red is a lot of fun - particularly with the Beneath mode, which is where we’ve spent the majority of our play-time with it. There’s a lot of variety available within the Scenarios too, since you can apply different modifiers that will change things up - and this is great to keep it feeling fresh if you’re wanting a break from the rogue-lite side of things. If you like the sound of all of that, and think you’d like to check it out, you can pick it up for £16.74 on the Xbox Store.
In the end, we decided to give Paint the Town Red the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Have you played Paint the Town Red yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to South East Games for the Paint the Town Red Xbox review code!
