Carrion Impressions – Being the beast of deep pixel space

<p>It&&num;8217&semi;s a dream come true&comma; Carrion is what we gamers have wanted for years&period; As you may see quite a bit in the industry are games that center on human defeating aliens and monsters&period; But recently it’s been the other way round with players taking on the role of the antagonistic force to be reckoned with and doing as much damage as possible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Carrion is made by a select few who worked on the bloody and carnage inducing The Butcher&comma; another game where you take on the role of the bad guy to wipe out humanity&period; A demo is out now for Carrion on Steam and I wanted to give my thoughts one of my highly anticipated games of 2020&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;149171" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-149171" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-149171 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2019&sol;10&sol;28172949&sol;CarrionImage2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-149171" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Carrion &lpar;Phobia Game Studio&sol; Devolver Digital&rpar; &&num;8211&semi; It&&num;8217&semi;s loose&excl;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<h4>Being the monster has never been so much fun&excl;<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>Carrion gives players the chance to live out their darkest dreams of being a vile creature that’s brutalizing the inhabitants of a giant space ship&period; The main goal here is to grow&comma; adapt&comma; consume human beings and finally take over the ship to ensure your ultimate goal &lpar;of landing on Earth and taking over I assume&rpar; is met&period; You start living in a secure &lpar;well not so secure actually&rpar; container before you awaken and free yourself into the confines of the ship&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Using the air ducts and crawl spaces lining the ship&comma; you traverse&comma; stalk&comma; hunt and observe the humans before completing a number of objectives&period; The demo has the player tackling a simple enough task of opening a heavily secure door that leads into the next section of the ship&period; As you move through the ship in order to find three components that will open the door&comma; you will eat&comma; grow and learn new abilities that come in handy later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;149172" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-149172" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-149172 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2019&sol;10&sol;28173056&sol;CarrionImage3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-149172" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Carrion &lpar;Phobia Game Studio&sol; Devolver Digital&rpar; &&num;8211&semi; Tasty&excl;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<h4>Flesh your eyes on this&excl;<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>The animation is extremely impressive and an upgrade to The Butcher&period; The movement of the creature is fluent&comma; looking extremely creepy as it attaches its tentacles to various surfaces and moves about like a giant parasite&period; The detailed gore system and destruction allow you to see the aftermath of the carnage you spread and it looks really good&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The environment itself is a little dull as it’s just an industrial-style space ship with plenty of tones of black&comma; grey and white&period; But there seem to be other environments with an eco-inspired section that will represent a greenhouse being one of them&period; I’m sure there will be more&comma; like the classic med-bay&comma; engine section and maybe even fancy bridge area that has more advanced defenses&period; Something that gamers would expect in a game like this&comma; similar titles such as Dead Space and Alien Isolation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>Beastly&excl;<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>I will say this is a tough game in regards to combat&period; The basics are you have to get up close and personal with your potential meal and consume them rapidly before they flee&period; There’s a good mix of unarmed&comma; those with pistols and others with more advanced tech&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You have a chomping attack which speaks for itself&comma; a means to shoot out a tentacle to blast enemies onto hard surfaces and disabling them and ability you gain midway through the demo that allows you to dash&period; Dashing is good for attacks but also to unlock new areas&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;149173" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-149173" style&equals;"width&colon; 1920px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-149173 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2019&sol;10&sol;28173349&sol;CarrionImage1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1920" height&equals;"1080" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-149173" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Carrion &lpar;Phobia Game Studio&sol; Devolver Digital&rpar; &&num;8211&semi; Splatter splatter&excl;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>So there’s an aspect of Metroidvania games here as you can backtrack and explore new areas by obtaining different abilities&period; This is a neat idea but as mentioned before&comma; there have to be more interesting areas to explore and rewards&period; There wasn’t a clear indication of what potential rewards will be &lpar;I hope there will be&rpar; but I imagine health upgrades being quite vital for later stages in the game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h4>Overall thoughts<&sol;h4>&NewLine;<p>I like Carrion quite a bit and could see it being a hit with the horror crowd&period; The monster design is creepy&comma; well everything about it is just disturbing and intriguing&period; The art style is nice&comma; nothing special in regards to what we’ve seen before with pixel art games&period; Yet the developers have gone great things with the gore&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The creature looks amazing and the world has a certain sci-fi charm I admire&period; I like to see the rest of the ship or maybe even another environment altogether&period; But as long as the ship has enough environments to explore and play with the gameplay mechanics then this will be fine&period; Looking forward to seeing Carrion in full in 2020&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;