Gang Beasts Reviews
A one-trick pony of a multiplayer fighter, Gang Beasts is sometimes hilariously messy but often just a mess.
A modern multiplayer classic finally comes home to console, although the package is as scrappy as the action itself.
At the end of the day, Gang Beasts is a straight-up treat.
Gang Beasts' charm has always been its janky, unpredictable, chaotic physics brawling, and you'll either be pleased or disappointed to know that it hasn't changed too much since 2014. On Switch, it runs well in Local and Online mode, although the Switch's voice chat options make the latter a less appealing choice. If you're a fan of portable party games, though, this is a classic not to be missed.
The perfect party game, great for short-bursts of entertainment but doesn't stand up to lengthy play.
For those who have been following the game since long before it's PlayStation 4 announcement, Gang Beasts really does come as a poisoned chalice. Its meathead multiplayer melees will light up your living room for hours on end, yet when there's only one person in the hot seat, it loses that charm almost completely.
It's tough to be down on Gang Beasts. At heart, it's just very silly entertainment for you and your pals, like the multiplayer games of yesteryear. It's kind of bad, broken even, and it's certainly not going to become a mainstay of anyone's regular gaming catalogue. But it certainly guarantees some laughs with your pals. Isn't that what gaming was designed to do?
Beyond the core multi-person battles, Gang Beasts has little else to offer. There's almost nothing for solo players to truly sink their teeth into for an extended period and local multiplayer starts to get old after a while without the ability to add bots. That only leaves online play as the best way to experience Gang Beasts as it should be played, but playing online is a rocky prospect at the moment.
I like the idea of Gang Beasts on paper. Hell, I even like Gang Beasts when I see other players play. The jelly physics of up to eight players smashing into one another and trying to toss each other over the edge is great fun in theory, but becomes more of a frustrating chore and test of patience in practice. If there was a better training ground to at least get a handle on the bizarre physics and controls, that would go a long way to making the game more accessible to newcomers. Even if they had that, Boneloaf needs to get a handle on their connection issues before Gang Beasts can really start to step into its stride and potential as a hilarious party game.
A stumbling and flailing spectacle of a physics brawler, Gang Beasts might have all the poise and grace of a bar dust up on a Friday night, but it remains hugely entertaining when played with friends all the same.
Gang Beasts is a game for friends. It's funny, silly and inconsequential. With a huge array of costumes to wear and places to brawl, you can play one game or ten and have a great time.
While “It's just a game” is true of all games, it shouldn't feel like the key rationale to remember when playing.
What we're left with is a multiplayer game that still has the ability to delight and surprise, but perhaps lacks some finishing touches to make it truly great. With online play a bit of a mess and a limited number of modes, Gang Beasts isn't short of issues, but just about gets away with it due to a solid core idea that, with friends, can be uproariously entertaining. If you're after a new title for gaming nights with buddies, or indeed, the Christmas party, you can do far worse than this.
Among the pros of a hybrid form ideal for local multiplayer and the cons of a network experience with the handbrake pulled, the conversion for Switch of Gang Beasts defends itself just enough to provide the Nintendo audience with the opportunity to recover one of the craziest party brawlers of recent years.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Gang Beasts' madcap brawling creates a dynamic alliance between conflict and chaos. It also enables human responses like surprise, merriment, revenge, and screaming. Driving a wobbly creature to comically murder another flailing mess, as it turns out, is a pleasant and repeatable practice. If only three of your friends could always come along for the ride.
Put every friendship you've ever had on the line with this beat 'em up classic from Boneloaf. Take on the persona of a boneless creature, put on your best animal onesie and get down to it. Fight on skyscrapers, cranes, lighthouses, you name it - you can brawl there. Bring all your friends together for the survival of the fittest, and just pray you will be the last one standing.
Gang Beasts is a multiplayer 3D brawler where up to four friends can play together or against each other as silly, floppy fighters that fight like drunk toddlers. If that sounds hilarious, that's because it is.
Even if I'm less than impressed with some of the game's technical shortcomings and overbalancing, Gang Beasts still delivered some of the funniest moments I've had in gaming, and that joy will stay with me for some time.
Gang Beasts never pretends to be a single-player experience; it's a party game through and through. Even though there's only so much depth that can be found in imprecisely manipulating ragdoll physics, the end result is still oddly compelling. While Gang Beasts is not the kind of game that will find its way into the eSports circuit, players will still find a lot to love as they fight and fall and laugh at all the ways they succeed or fail in its oddball arenas.
Despite some issues Gang Beasts will be staying in my lineup of games to play with my family for some time to come.