Death Puck

Put simply, Death Puck is Air Hockey with a weird attitude laid over blood and gore. And if that wasn't good enough for you; it's actually a highly entertaining game.

The essentially game premise is real simple; score 15 points against your opponent by smashing the puck past him with your paddle on what the game refers to as "the table of honour", but what everyone else in the world refers to as "the air hockey table".

First to 15 wins. Simple and boring right? Na-ah.

Death Puck takes it a lot further than that. For starters the game has various modes; 'Tournament' in which you face all of the preset characters (one of whom for reasons best known to the developer is 'Joe Stalin'...), 'Quick Match' mode in which you can choose which opponent how many points the game will last and on which table you will play it, 'Survival Mode' in which you see how many opponents you can beat with just 15 points allowed to be scored against you and 'Streak Mode' (or "moding of the streak" as the game sound effects call it) in which you see how many opponents you can beat in a row.

'Jack' proceeds to thrash me. That's right, that's blood splattered against the screen.

On top of the modes Death Puck has incorporated various player 'special moves', executed using mouse button combinations during the game (when your "power bar" reaches full); you can use a 'super shot' or make the opponent paddle shrink; apparently there are more but I am yet to find them! Don't think this gives you too much of an advantage, the AI have special moves of their own; which are equally annoying and great at the same time - the table shaker (the Sam character) and Stalins, puck shot (which sends the puck hurtling at your face...) are in particular effective.

There is also an option to turn the table "3D" but I didn't have any 3D glasses so I couldn't test that out correctly. I am assuming it works to some extent given the nature of the game.

The Death Puck cast and table designs on the 'Quick Match' Screen.

Deathpuck looks great - a bit weird, but great none the less. From the intro to the menu's and the table designs (which are somewhat random) it really has a stylish feel to it. It's a rare Indie game that looks this nice for such a simple premise. We like that. It sounds pretty good too - a bizarre electro techno feel to the in game music. Someone thought about this game. A lot. Just check out the advert for the game.

As for the game play, rarely do I scream "TAKE THAT YOU F***ER!" at a computer game, but Death Puck had me shouting abuse at pixels. It's highly entertaining - no doubt.

Summary

A highly entertaining air hockey sim with blood, general gore, special moves and style.

Where Can I Get It?

http://www.lucifergamestudio.com/deathpuck/

SGR Rating


85%