God’s Trigger – PC review

Review by Tim Turner

God’s Trigger is a top down hack and slash, run and gun dungeon crawler from developers One More Level and publisher Techland publishing. The player takes control of Harry, an angel from heaven, and Judy, a demoness from hell in order to track down and kill the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Play takes place in a number of different environments from the typical medieval dungeons through wild west film sets and biker bars to ethereal illusions and high-tech mercenary bases. The story line is very minimal but this has the bonus of the cut scenes being short and non-intrusive giving you just enough information to follow the narrative and keep the game play fast.

The game play in God’s Trigger is very fast and action packed with a very steep learning curve meaning you will die a lot! Dying is not really a problem in this game as there are regular checkpoints meaning you only have to repeat small sections of a level. Play switches between the two characters at the press of a button allowing the player to use the different ‘dash’ abilities of Harry or Judy to smash through walls or teleport through prison bars. In addition to the dash ability each character has a melee attack and a ranged attack which is used with the abundance of weapons dropped by enemies.

Both characters can unlock 8 different special abilities each such as invisibility or mind control and the abilities are unique to each character meaning the player will need to repeatedly use both to complete a level. This is where the steep learning curve comes into play. There are so many moves and abilities I found it difficult to remember what button does what seeing as every button on the controller is used! I found keyboard and mouse impossible to use due to the speed and precision needed to execute the different moves. With a controller I found it much easier to aim as you have a line on screen showing aim rather than just a cross hair. I feel this line should be implemented on mouse and keyboard as well to make things easier.

Once you have mastered the controls this game becomes incredibly addictive with the difficulty increasing level by level and more and more puzzle elements being introduced. The puzzles themselves are not too mentally taxing but when combined with the speed and accuracy of the incoming enemies they do prove a challenge especially when incorporated into a boss fight. The enemies move in a regimented way until alerted meaning you can use stealth to take out some of the baddies (which recharges your ability meter) before dashing in and smacking the snot out of the rest with a chain of melee and ranged assaults

The graphics in this game are great to look at and work really well with the style of the game. The first appearance is similar to many other games of this type like Hotline Miami or even as far back as Metal gear solid but with an added Tarantino feel helped by the sprays of blood! By the time you defeat a few baddies there is blood everywhere! This all adds to the charm of this game making you feel like you are starring in your own version of Kill Bill. Despite the top down view the environments are fully three dimensional meaning you need a pretty decent PC for the game to run well. Due to the fast pace anything less than 60fps makes things rather more difficult.

God’s Trigger is priced at only £11.95 this game is a must buy! With the local co-op mode I can imagine many an hour on the sofa with a mate spraying baddies blood all over the place. The campaign levels can be replayed to achieve a better grading and there are magazine pages hidden in each level to find so there are tons of reasons to keep playing. It can be infuriating at the start due to the speed at which you get killed but once you get the hang of it you will be hooked! 1 hour of playtime soon turns into 5 hours because you need to do just one more level! (I see now where the developers got their name!) Speaking of which more arcade levels are due to be added in June increasing the amount of blood spattering mayhem to be had.

All in all, God’s Trigger is a masterpiece of game design reminiscent of old arcade games but modernized in a new and innovative way providing an experience like no other. Fast paced and fun packed with puzzle elements and tactical decisions it is bound to capture the hearts of all who play it. Who doesn’t want to star in their own Tarantino movie after all? I will happily give a solid 9/10 for this beauty. It would be 10/10 if keyboard and mouse was easier to use but I’m not sure that’s possible.