(18+) REVIEW: BDSM: Big Drunk Satanic Massacre


Title	BDSM: Big Drunk Satanic Massacre
Developer	Big Way Games
Publisher	Big Way Games
Release Date	October 10th, 2019
Genre	Action, Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform	Steam, PS4, Switch
Age Rating	N/A
Official Website

There is no introduction, no arrangement of letters forming intelligible sentences that can prepare you for this. Big Drunk Satanic Massacre, or BDSM for short (cue rimshot), is a top-down isometric shooter with an over-the-top theme, in terms of humor, violence and debauchery. It’s made by Big Way Games, a collective of developers from various parts of the world. Judging by the release date on the game’s Steam page initially being in Russian, I can guess where at least some of them are. As for the game itself, everyone take a deep breath and leave your innocence at the door for this one.

Our world and Hell are at peace. Both experience economic growth as people and demons indulge in their most deep-seated and, shall we say, animalistic urges. Dildo guns may or may not be involved. There’s just one problem: the spawn of Satan hates all of this. Lucifer—or Lou for short—spends more and more time getting drunk at bars because he can’t stand the human corporate presence and the demons who signed on to work for them. Still clad in an undershirt and boxers after getting cut off by the bartender, Lou does the one sensible thing anyone in his position would. He grabs a gun and a bottle of booze, then goes on a one-demon rampage to take back Hell for himself. Thus the Big Drunk Satanic Massacre begins.

The intro sequence alone sets the tone for Big Drunk Satanic Massacre, and that tone is along the same lines as a stereotypical 90s first-person shooter. Pop culture references and one-liners are a near constant. This is where you’ll either smirk or groan at seeing (and usually killing) characters who happen to look a lot like Peter Griffin, Cartman, Keanu Reeves, My Little Pony characters dressed like Team Fortress 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters, and obese Doom marines. You may also think that NIAC, the old robed man who sells upgrades, seems to look and act like someone from another devil-themed game. That said, some references are so niche I almost forgot what they were referencing. This was the first time I’d heard anyone say “Hide yo kids! Hide yo wife!” in years, much less heard it a couple dozen times. While the game is supposed to be satire, I didn’t find anything particularly funny as it’s delivered with the wit and forethought of a fifteen-year old doing pranks for YouTube.

Despite being a hot mess and constantly holding a bottle of MILK, the in-game booze brand, Lou is quite capable in combat. Over the course of Big Drunk Satanic Massacre he ends up with a small assortment of firearms including a shotgun, rocket launcher, flamethrower and BFG, each with primary and secondary fire options. The secondary fire, which consumes extra ammo, ends up being incredibly useful as it tends to behave a lot differently. For example, the machine gun’s secondary fire is a small grenade launcher and the shotgun’s secondary fire is concentrated buck shot which can pierce through multiple enemies. Speaking of, there’s a fair variety of enemies and they, like the weapons, are introduced gradually as the levels progress. Yes, most of them jog toward Lou by default, though some specifically try to charge and stun him or hang back and spawn more enemies. And yes, there are some repurposed character models along the way, but they behave and attack differently than their lookalikes earlier in the game.

Nailing the run-and-gun fun is tantamount, and fortunately Big Drunk Satanic Massacre largely does just that. For most encounters all the doors to an open area will close and enemies will spawn in waves, some based on killing everything that spawns, some based on a timer. These are usually followed by some downtime with a path or hallway to the next fight, a design choice which did get a little stale after a while. This became a bit tiring later on as the door switches and hallways escalated to an almost absurd number, but the combat offsets it well enough. Fights are frantic and force the player to take note of things like ammo drops, health drops and environment pieces to use for cover or kiting enemies into manageable groups. Ammo drops replenish every weapon Lou has, so there’s no worrying over getting ammo for the wrong weapon. He also has a dash which lets him get away from enemies faster while damaging anything in his path, which became a lifesaver in the latter stages. And then there’s the Rage bar which, when filled after drinking and/or picking up red orbs, lets Lou become invulnerable and fire a concentrated beam that incinerates enemies for a few seconds. The one issue I had with combat was switching weapons, as running out of ammo for one or two will happen in larger encounters. This is assigned to the mouse wheel, so I frequently wound up overshooting anything that wasn’t at the top or bottom of the weapon order.

Lou can also pick up and cast a spell or two to do things like summon minions or call down meteors, or purchase weapon and ability upgrades to boost damage, get extra critical hits, etc. Finally, Lou can also level up things like ammo capacity and health by earning stat points from side quests or… something I’ll cover later. The point is that Lou can be surprisingly versatile, allowing for more than a simple “pick the biggest gun and stick with it” strategy. All that being said, the Rage mechanic and the upgrade purchases depend heavily on one thing: item pickups. Aside from dropping ammo and booze for health, enemies in Big Drunk Satanic Massacre also leave behind money and red orbs for the Rage bar. This will drop the moment the enemy dies and disappears after a bit of time. At the end of encounters this isn’t a problem, but when money and orbs appear in the first of several waves it creates a mad scramble to grab them while also not dying. I’d try leading enemies away so I could dash through and pick up some money, only for most of it to be gone by the time I got there. On higher difficulties upgrade purchases are crucial, so missing money drops simply isn’t an option.

What is an option is sex. Well, sort of. That other way to earn stat points I mentioned? Lou meets and gets down and dirty with several girls, succubi, ponies and what clearly isn’t Hitler. It’s actually pretty tame, since you just mash a couple keys as slow or fast as the game says to while flames rise around a card with a gun on it. Still, there’s little that’s tame about Big Drunk Satanic Massacre. A trailer of the game actually led to the developer’s YouTube account getting terminated for “nudity and sexual content.” And to be fair, there is a bit of both. Switches take the form of breasts on nude statues, which moan when Lou headbutts them. Cutscenes include things like the aforementioned dildo gun and, shall we say, backdoor shady deals. Gimp-suited fat guys will charge you while Peter Griffin and Cartman fart up a storm. Some enemies will have specific parts or attacks pixelated while others explode into projectile dildos. Critical hits are illustrated by “FUCKED!” appearing on a hit enemy. Basically, the game tries to do everything it can without potentially earning an adults only label.

Big Drunk Satanic Massacre manages to run quite smoothly, even with a screen full of meaty targets to shoot. There are some instances of pop-in here and there, though it’s from inconsequential background pieces. Enemy textures can be a bit weird at times, though; some that aren’t covered in latex have a plastic-like sheen to them. Sound-wise, it’s more of a mixed bag. Background tracks are primarily grinding metal tracks, which does end up a bit samey after a while, though things do change up a couple chapters in. Voices are all over the map, with some actors unable to hide their accents and others covering them with even worse accents. It’s not as apparent since the most prevalent voice actors in the game are the guns, but it still comes off as a bit cheap.

The worst aspect of Big Drunk Satanic Massacre, aside from some of the attempts at humor, is oddly specific. I’ve played games that crash a lot, but those tend to crash in a variety of places and under different conditions. This one consistently crashed in the first section of the third chapter in three different places, one of which happens to be shortly before an auto-saving checkpoint. I had to go back through several hallways hitting the same switches, only for it to crash again. It may have only happened in one part of one chapter, but a half-dozen crashes in a game of this scope is too many for me to turn a blind eye to.

I’ve never had a harder time trying to evaluate a game than with Big Drunk Satanic Massacre. The humor fell flat for me, the music and levels don’t really stand out, but I ultimately enjoyed the core gameplay everything is built around. It has stability issues in parts, but man, I love slaughtering wave after wave of demons and non-copyright infringing caricatures. Clocking in at just over five and a half hours it’s not exactly a quick, beat-it-and-forget-it kind of game; I certainly won’t forget some of the things I saw anytime soon. At $19.99 on Steam and $29.99 on PS4 and Switch, I’d say give it a shot if a good sale comes along.