Editor’s Note: In a Critics Circle first, we are running two reviews of former contributor Shawn Alexander Allen’s Beatdown City Survivors. The first is written by our newest NYVGCC intern, Osaze. And the second (below) is Kimari, who is one of our longest running contributors.

By Kimari Rennis

Native New Yorkers will confidently confirm the existence of zombies in the city. They can be seen lingering in the middle of a busy walkway, taking pictures of a Macy’s storefront, pretending to be licensed taxi drivers outside of JFK airport, or, as they flail around, refusing to place their burgeoning backpack between their legs on a crowded subway.

Beatdown City Survivors will show you a different kind of New York zombie. These are green, grotesque, brain-eating zombies that reside in the city. They barrel down city intersections in endless droves, alongside hordes of bloodthirsty rats, and swarms of giant cockroaches. In this chaotic, Vampire Survivors-like, 2D bullet hell hybrid, you’ll take control of a vibrant cast of offbeat characters to eradicate monsters in a destructible city. It’s a formula that makes a game great, one that I cannot put down.

At first I was skeptical. Usually when games place me in a level with a slideshow of the instructions and a quick flash of the controls, my interest drops sharply off a cliff and it’s a drag to bring me back in. But Beatdown City Survivors was different. This game benefits from throwing you right into the action because it is part of the mayhem happening all around your character. When you start the game, you’re in a dark, decaying New York City with enemies approaching from all sides of the screen. From that point onward, it’s fight or die, by any means necessary.

You can knock down traffic lights into puddles of water to electrocute monsters. Beat on cars, Street Fighter style, until they explode, leaving a ferocious fire for mutants to walk through. You can even lure enemies into pools of blood so they are ravaged by droves of rats before they set their sights on your character. It doesn’t stop at just the environment. Pick up boomeranging flipflops, lace up some work boots to get to stomping, throw knives, swing pipes, toss sick pigeons on every rotten being that gets in your way.

One thing I quickly learned is that Beatdown City Survivors is runs-based with roguelike elements. It means that  anytime I’m out in the streets mowing down zombies, up until my inevitable death, I am earning currency that allows me to make all of my characters stronger for the next run. The more I play, the more permanent upgrades I buy, the better my chances of going further than the last attempt. It’s a satisfactory dopamine loop that keeps me hooked for hours on end.

The game’s basic mechanics are easy to pick up. You move the character you choose. You have a basic attack that you can either do manually or toggle to attack automatically. You walk around the environment eradicating enemies that infinitely spawn while avoiding damage. You pick up experience orbs dropped by monsters to level up and become stronger. You destroy objects in the environment for health, money, and utilize environmental hazards. And I can comfortably play with one hand.

Whenever your character levels up during a run, you get to choose one item from a random selection to alter your gameplay during that session. Items can either be weapons which spice up your methods of dispatching the hordes of the undead, or they can be passive items that add percentage increases to aspects of your character like their health, luck, movement speed, or damage output. When you collect duplicates of an item you already have equipped, it gets upgraded and becomes stronger providing more damage and more powerful effects.

By far my favorite part of the game is the ability to combine max level items to get a more powerful item that can also be upgraded to become stronger. Combining items also opens up space to collect more weapons. The power scaling tickles my brain in all the right ways when all of these game elements come together (slaying enemies, leveling up, getting stronger to eliminate even more enemies and level up more).

Then, survivors quickly changes. Initially, it was you with your nervous punches and sidesteps. Later, you become a walking aura of instant death and destruction. If I were a toddler, Beatdown City Survivors would be keys jingled in my face and to make me entranced.

Speaking of a jingled key: Shibuya! When I saw the silhouette of a Shiba Inu wearing two pairs of sneakers in the character select screen, unlocking them became my top priority. I’m a dog person, so much so that whenever I see the inkling of a gimmicky or silly playable animal that even resembles a dog, it quickly becomes the only character I play. I yearn to play as Shibuya, and the only thing stopping me is my poor performance playing. At the time of writing this review, I have clocked 13 hours, and I haven’t even reached the stage where Shibuya can be found! I have a long journey ahead of me before I’ve earned the right to play as the token dog character, but I know it’ll be worth it, and enjoyable. I don’t care if it takes 13 more hours or 30. I will unlock Shibuya.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing Pumpkin the cute cat, who was significantly easier to unlock. Pumpkin’s ability to increase their dodge percentage allows the reckless kind of gameplay that I’m into. Under the right circumstances, Pumpkin can be untouchable, immortalizing him as an unkillable bodega cat with a jack o’ lantern face. Pumpkin was the character I won my first run with, too! This is additional proof of my connection with the animal world. Imagine all that I could accomplish with Shibuya by my side.

On a more personal note, lately I’ve been on a health kick. I go on long hikes every weekend, eat organic home cooked meals, and do strength training at my local recreation center. I’m more committed to health than I’ve ever been. It took all my strength and willpower to not sink back into my old gaming ways because of the lure of Beatdown City Survivors. I was almost willing to cancel my group hiking plans. I wanted to smash down a party pack of Taco Bell with extra hot sauce while grinding out runs in subways I just unlocked. Thankfully, I was able to peel myself away from my computer to have some much needed outside time, but I thought about this monster-filled bullet hell the entire time. If that isn’t a testament to how addicting and sticky this game is, I don’t know what is.

Beatdown City Survivors is straight up, unadulterated fun. It is the after-dinner mint of a long day of work. When I clock out and commute, I want nothing more than the dopamine rush of damage numbers popping up as a mow down hundreds of enemies on my screen, leveling up, and layering on more weapons and effects

Despite all of the pixelated blood and gore, this game, strangely, makes me miss being in New York City more. All of the exaggerations (like the bipedal mutated rats, a halal cart being the saving grace for buying health items and equipment, and the highly territorial and overactive cops) are amusing parodies that don’t feel forced. Every element is thematically-based on the lived experiences of New Yorkers and I love it!        

Beatdown City Survivors is a must-play for anyone that has a love for Vampire Survivors, beat ‘em ups, roguelikes, and the city that never sleeps. If you’re looking for a game that makes hours feel like minutes, look no further.

Circle Member and former intern Kimari Rennis, who has been part of NYVGCC for many years, is now working at Lucasfilm Games as an Assistant Producer.

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