Gori: Cuddly Carnage

Gori: Cuddly Carnage gets a lot of things right from the moment you see it: 

Cute ginger tomcat ✅ 

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater mechanics ✅

Devil May Cry levels of violence ✅

Whatever Angry Demon Studio has been cooking up, I want some of it, and a big portion. And somewhat conveniently, the publisher Wired Productions has launched an alpha demo on the Xbox store to get our claws into this violent, over-the-top, hack-and-slash affair.

Key Points

Summary
We enjoyed…	+ Devil May Cry carnage mixed with Tony Hawk’s mechanics + Gori the adorable ginger tom + Excellent humour
We’d like to see more…	+ More varied enemies + Strong story
Release Date	2023
Available On	PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch & PC (Wishlist)

According to the blurb from Wired Productions, Gori: Cuddly Carnage is “a third-person ‘skate ‘n’ slash’ developed by Angry Demon Studio that is set in a neon-glowing world filled with intense destruction”. We start the game where a horde of mutated and blood-thirsty toys known as The Adorable Army has wiped out all humans. Everything on Earth that wasn’t cute or cuddly enough to join its ranks was laid to waste. Only Gori, the cutest tomcat in media (sorry Puss in Boots), and his sentient, razor-sharp hoverboard, F.R.A.N.K, can stop the carnage caused and restore order.

The aforementioned Gori is thrown from his spaceship after being attacked by The Adorable Army. Accompanied by his talking hoverboard, our cute protagonist sets off to find spare parts to rebuild his ship. The story seems like the typical ‘save the world’ schtick but the setup is brilliantly written. From the off the humour had me belly-laughing, even before I pressed forward on the controller. The modular AI who controls the ship ‘CH1-P’ and F.R.A.N.K are very, very foulmouthed as they describe what is happening, but rather than being offensive, it is used with a comedic effect. Much like Conker’s Bad Fur Day, it is crude but a nice segue into ultra-violent action. 

As Gori and F.R.A.N.K landed, it was time to get underway. I was dropped into a vibrant futuristic world that was full of neon colours in a cyberpunk-like city. Shortly after landing, our miniature tiger becomes enemy number one, and his face is plastered across the many digital screens adorning the walls of buildings. This also alerts the local fuzz, specifically bloodthirsty zombie unicorns who are out to tear the fur from Gori’s corpse. 

It might be an obvious statement but any hack-and-slash game lives and dies by the sword – action is everything and Gori excels at this right out of the gate. After a quick rundown of the basics, Gori’s hoverboard doubles as a violent sword that cuts down waves of enemies at the tap of a button. A gleeful smile crept across my face as I was obliterating mindless zombie unicorns and even typing this sentence brings me joy (…perhaps I need to see a professional?). but my sadistic enjoyment aside, the gameplay is exactly what I want out of a video game – FUN. 

Throughout the short demo, Gori: Cuddly Carnage did hint at areas where future moves and combinations can be unlocked. It seems that much like the early Tony Hawk’s titles, Gori will be able to string together long, continuous combos with F.R.A.N.K the hoverboard and rack up end-of-level stats. Whether or not they will form some additional bonuses or even online leaderboards remains to be seen, but there are signs that Angry Demon Studio has built a substantial game beneath the cutesy bloodshed.

Gori: Cuddly Carnage is shaping up to be the love child between Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Devil May Cry that’s wrapped up in a blanket of humour straight from Conker’s Bad Fur Day, and I’m all here for it. The violent combos are not only joyful to watch as unicorn blood fills the screen, but they are so simple to pull off that it makes the game more fun. I will stress that thanks to YouTube’s ridiculous compression, videos often pixelate so don’t give a true representation of the game, Gori is one of those games that needs to be played to be believed. The gameplay was buttery smooth and with undead innards spraying across the screen the Xbox didn’t stutter even once during my time with the demo. At this stage, the jury is still out on Gori’s story but I get the feeling that however it turns out, there will be no mediocrity, it’s gonna be all or nothing.