Masquerade: The Baubles of Doom (PC) Preview

Masquerade: The Baubles of Doom is an action title much in the same vein as recent Batman games, but perhaps not quite as polished. The main character - a lively, jesting jester named Jaxx - fights through an army of evil clowns to rescue a woman affectionately referred to multiple times as his "broad," and save the kingdom while he's at it.

What little semblance of plot there might have been is lost between the lowbrow humour, oddly conflicting visual styles, and what seems to be bad audio editing. Some clips stand out by nearly screaming the lines, while other characters are extremely hard to hear. In fact, there are some lines detailing main plot points that are almost impossible to make out, even with the volume all the way up.

Jaxx has several basic moves at his disposal, most of which don't really impact gameplay. In any given situation when faced with enemies, it's pretty easy to simply mash the attack button, only stopping to briefly press counter when the indicator for it appears. Most brawls simply come down to smashing buttons over and over, occasionally stopping to pick up the rubber noses of defeated enemies.

It's repetitive and annoying at best, and headache-inducing at its worst. The sounds effects are what you'd expect from a primarily clown-based group of foes, and the slapstick humour comes across as childish. The censoring of profanity with a Saturday morning cartoon style bleep is weird, considering the game's overwhelming reliance on toilet humour, and it doesn't feel coherent with the very jocular front the enemies put on.

Aside from the combat, there are also brief platforming sections that completely interrupt any gameplay flow there might have been. Jaxx's jumps feel stiff and awkward, and combined with the bad draw distance and jerky camera, the sections are extremely annoying. They tend to go on too long and they're extremely uninspired in their design. These sections are easily the weakest portion of the preview, and frankly, it doesn't need the help.