Anger Foot Review | PC

Kill. Die. Learn. Repeat. Wait… Wrong game? Well, this still applies in Anger Foot, which might be one of the most fun shooters I have played in only the past month surprisingly, seeing as a similarly framed Mullet MadJack came out almost exactly a month prior to this.

Devolver Digital seems to have a keen eye for indie games like this. They really have built up their brand by publishing unique games that have one thing in common—an extremely addictive gameplay loop. Free Lives’ Anger Foot is no different.
 

 

But what is this gameplay loop I’m talking about? There are four maps with different levels and a boss at the end. You have a gun in your right hand and your left foot ready to do some kickin’. Also, you can’t reload your gun. You have to throw it which stuns whoever you hit and you can pick up your enemies’ guns so you can keep shooting. Oh, and your kick kills things in one hit, usually. Got that? Now, when you’re on a level, you kick down doors, shoot stuff, pick up guns and try not to get carried away by the banger soundtrack. The gameplay is reminiscent of Hotline Miami but in 3D. It’s like you are John Wick, but with the weirdness of Adult Swim cartoons in a good way, of course.

In the story, you play an angry man named Anger Foot who does everything with his feet. This includes eating, ziplining, driving, kicking down doors, literally everything. Given he really loves using his feet, he also is obsessed with collecting sneakers. Our protagonist finally completes his collection of Preemo sneakers, but immediately gets robbed by the Violence gang for he lives in a place called Shit City.

In Shit City, crime is the law and everyone is in a gang. There are four gangs: Violence gang, Pollution gang, Business gang, and Debauchery gang who all answer to the Crime Minister. As soon as your shoes get stolen, you try to hunt them down, only to find out your shoes have been scattered amongst the gangs. Now, you have to fight through each of them to get them back.

Usually, games like this are all gameplay, and the story takes a backseat. However, Anger Foot actually has a real narrative going on. Many levels have small open sections where you can explore and talk to the NPCs. I found this very interesting as I wondered, “What would the people of a place like Shit City be like?”. I’m glad I took the time to talk to the NPCs here as I came across some of the funniest interactions ever. The dialogue can range from a child who begs you to tell his mom that he has been doing crimes and drugs instead of watching TV, to a corporate presentation that quickly devolves into a bunch of meaningless buzzwords.
 

 

It is very difficult to pull off satire comedy well, but Anger Foot does it perfectly. No aspect of the game is taken seriously. Everything it says and does is just so stupid that it ends up getting a chuckle out of you. It feels like the result if every, “What if we added this?” idea was actually added and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

For example, when faced with octopuses’ arms, you would expect them to grab you or slap you around, right? Here, they just try to shoot you with their guns. It’s things like this that subvert your expectations and make you want more out of this game.

For the weapons that you use in Anger Foot they've gone for a quality over quantity kind of lineup. The three main ones you'll be using are a pistol, an SMG, and a shotgun. Now the pistol is by far the most common and has a low ammo count but is the most accurate, making it handy for firing in quick succession. The SMG on the other hand has a bigger magazine size but then it also comes with a lot more recoil and isn't nearly as accurate from a distance.

Then you got the shotgun, which has a wider spread but again a lower ammo count. And you just need to aim this thing in the general direction of a bad guy and then the rest will just sort itself out. Later in the game, you'll also eventually get an assault rifle, a grenade launcher, dual revolvers, a crossbow, and even a minigun. But those original three are by far the ones that are going to get the most mileage. It's not that those other weapons aren't any good, in fact, it's kind of crazy how quickly that minigun can shred up a group of enemies. But you just can't beat the classic effectiveness of a good old-fashioned pistol, SMG, and shotgun trio.
 

 

About the only weapon I just found to be very weak was the flamethrower, which doesn't seem to affect enemies hit by the fire and they'll still run right through this stuff like its no big deal. Which just means that crowd control element you'd really expect and want a weapon like this to have is not there. Plus, it ruins the pacing when you have to stand there for like 10 seconds waiting for that fire to dissipate because your feet get burned if you kick them before that. You can just throw your weapon to stun enemies if you don’t like them, though.

You will also unlock several sneakers as you go in Anger Foot, which have their unique quirks. For example, some cause an explosion whenever you kick down doors. There’s another that makes your enemies’ heads bigger which makes getting headshots easier, and my favorite: a shoe called Size Threes, that just makes you extremely short. There are many other sneakers, these are just some that I like. The usefulness can vary from absolutely game-changing to funny gimmicks which I have no qualms with.

Although, the Preemo shoes that Anger Foot is all about aren’t very impressive. There is one that you can charge up to dash forward and that’s it. I won’t spoil the rest, but I wish they felt a little bit more special considering how important they are.

The levels in Anger Foot are clearly play-tested and handcrafted. This game is no procedurally generated roguelike. There are about 60 levels in the game and the goal is to move forward through doors, kill things along the way, and try not to die. The enemies here actually deal a lot of damage to you. While you can get through most of the levels within the first few tries, you may find yourself dying to something you don’t even see coming because of the randomness that occurs from hordes of enemies coming onto you.
 

 

This may sound unfair, but with the physics of Anger Foot, it is actually quite entertaining. Almost everything is interactable and you have the classic ragdoll physics, which means dead bodies of enemies will flop around on the screen. Plus, when you die the enemies start pulling off some dance moves, which caught me off guard the first time I noticed it.

Anger Foot also has helpful visual and audio design in the enemies, so you can see an enemy type and know exactly what you're coming up against. When you see some brawny lizard guys for instance, you know right away that they're only armed with melee weapons and not going to be that much of a threat. When you see the guys in the hoodies and the tracksuits, well then you know that you're about to get shot at with a pistol or an SMG. One enemy type has this giant cartoonish-looking bomb for a head which is kind of hard to miss, and kicking these dudes back instead of shooting them is going to turn them into your own personal exploding ragdoll. And then the ones who can throw grenades have a very distinct audio cue when one of those things is about to be thrown, giving you ample time to get out of the way or you know kick those grenades back into their face.

The bosses whom you encounter at the final level of each gang you invade aren’t just beefier enemies. In one of the bosses, you have to fight a helicopter. You think to defeat it by shooting some sort of launcher at it, but the answer is much simpler than that—you just kick it. In phase two of this boss, it starts dropping bombs at you, but they’re just those bomb guys you can kick back to deal damage. After that, you just have to kick a car until the boss is defeated. You never know what to expect, and what I just described is one of the simplest bosses.

The soundtrack in Anger Foot is dynamic and will change on the fly depending on your actions. Dynamic soundtracks are incredibly underrated. I really wish more games did this. The audio in general is just good in this game. Everything sounds meaty and punchy and fits perfectly. The music fades when you slow down and the tempo kicks up when there is a lot of action on the screen. The electronic bass-heavy hardstyle music really puts you in a trance and sort of makes you try to chase the adrenaline rush it gives you—at least that’s how it felt for me.
 

 

Anger Foot is a crazy, high-adrenaline First-Person Shooter that will suck you in for hours until you have finished the game. While it does not do anything revolutionary for the genre, it does what it does very well. I’m totally here for the addictive gameplay loop, the world that doesn’t take itself seriously, and that soundtrack that I can’t seem to get enough of. I highly recommend this game to anyone who appreciates high octane, toe-curling action, and satirical humor in their video games.
 

Ahnaf Tajwar
Editor, NoobFeed