ANGER FOOT
Developer Free Lives Publisher Devolver Digital Format iOS, PC, Switch Release 2023
Not since Ape Out – another Devolver joint – has a game made us feel so powerfully furious. Free Lives’ boot-’em-up is a single-minded addition to the burgeoning breach-and-clear subgenre (Rico, Severed Steel) with the grubby milieu of a firstperson Hotline Miami. Your job, in short, is to take out the trash: you move from room to room, punting doors so hard they fly off their hinges, wiping out any goons immediately behind them. Then you clear out the rest, kicking their faces in, swiping their guns (and throwing those away or at the nearest ne’er-do-well when you’ve emptied the chamber) and shooting them before they can fire back. It’s all set to a throbbing soundtrack that only dulls once a room has been de-thugged. There are rewards for completing a level with your feet alone: what better way to celebrate than with a new pair of kicks?