Double Kick Heroes Review | Metalhead approved rhythm game.

Metal Heads rejoice, Double Kick Heroes rocks hard! Twenty four tracks that range from Death Metal, Beach Metal, Nu Metal, Black, Jurassic Opera , and more. It's an insane variety of music. However, Double Kick Heroes is also one of the most challenging rhythm games I've ever played.

The speed is tremendous which makes sense for the genres of music. Let's chat about mechanics, game modes, and controls. The most important thing you need to know about Double Kick Heroes is the crazy mash-up of mechanics. The main focus is the rhythm mechanics but let's not forget about the enemies chasing the car.

So, let's begin there, with the rhythm mechanics because without those you will fail. The main track is the kick drum and it's the only one that matters. If you miss too many notes then it's game over. The enemies will catch up to the car and you'll lose a life.

The kick drum controls the guns attached to the rear of the car, it's the majority of your damage output. You must alternate the guns to shoot enemies coming from the top and bottom of the screen. It's similar to how a drummer might play double kick drums.

The notes will come fast and furious as you might expect from this type of music. At the lower difficulties, you only need to play the kick drum to get through a level, it will be enough to hold off the enemies. Gaining a streak will make the guns more powerful.

So as the notes come quickly there's a greater chance to get the upgrade. However, if you miss too many notes the guns lock up and you can't shoot at all. It's a tricky situation to come back from if you lock up too many times you will fail the level.

The other two tracks, snare and cymbals, output more damage against the horde of enemies. But they're only activated on higher difficulty levels. At the level, I played at I only had snare notes to hit. They're not required to finish the level but they do help.

The snare notes build up a meter that when it's over twenty-five percent and you hit a special note a grenade will be lobbed out the back of the car. Getting only some of the notes is enough to get a few grenades so unless you want to get a high score it's much easier to skip some of them.

So you're managing the rhythm mechanics but that's not all you'll also need to move the car out of the way of attacks. On certain levels, you take control of the car and move it up and down. Luckily the game reduces the difficultly so you can focus. It's a neat mechanic and I like how they show you the attack is coming in the area where you see the notes.

But it's not perfect. It kinda shows you the direction you need to move the car but not if you have it in the right place. It's challenging to keep hitting the notes and keep track of the car's position. Shifting your brain between the two can break it.

Now we've arrived at the biggest question of Double Kick Heroes. Is it a rhythm game or a game with rhythm mechanics? Is the goal to get away from the enemies or get a high score? I'm not sure. I played through only focusing on killing the enemies. However, if you do go for a high score then you'll kill all the enemies anyway.

But do you want to control the car and try for a high score if you're only concentrating on hitting the right notes? Even skipping snare notes to save a grenade for when there are more enemies on the screen could be a good idea. Goes against trying to get the high score but it's a valid strategy.

I would hate to make this out to be a bigger deal than it is. Double Kick Heroes works well, it's a little odd the ideas are slightly contrasting. Anyway, there are plenty of game modes to play through in Double Kick Heroes. The story mode is the obvious place to start.

However, I found the story to be far too confusing. Even worse when you need to drive a car around on the map and it takes forever! It's purely personal preference but I couldn't follow the story at all and it made me wonder why it was there. The characters are silly and there's a lot of references but it doesn't always land.

If you want to still play through the game and skip the story you can use Arcade mode. It's exactly the same level progression except everything is in a menu. Beyond that, you can play the game in endless or the daily challenge. Hellgate mode has nineteen guest tracks with some from other games.

There are also user-created tracks. However, you will need to BYOM or bring your own mp3s. It leaves the grunt work to the player and it's sad there couldn't be something like Spotify integration. I realize bringing music to games is a huge challenge.

I'm happy they included the ability to create tracks even if there are a few hurdles to using it. At this point I have a very limited amount of mp3s lying around. You should keep in mind that for each of the game modes there are five different difficultly levels.

But the maximum level would need an inhuman amount of finger speed. I'm not saying it's impossible because I've seen pros play rhythm games with a keyboard and it's crazy. So I recommend a keyboard over an Xbox controller. For me, pressing the bumpers fast enough is impossible.

I tried and later in the game the kick drum notes come too fast. To be the best there ever was you'll want a drum controller from a game like "Rock Band". If you have one of those then Double Kick Heroes is a no brainer. Otherwise, if you're OK with sticking to the lower difficultly levels then the keyboard works fine.

Overall, Double Kick Heroes is a great game and another solid addition to my rhythm game collection. I enjoyed all the music and destroying the hellish demons along the way. Shooting enemies from a car using a drum kit is such a novel idea it's difficult not to love it.