Double Kick Heroes (PC) Preview

The protagonist metal band has found itself in a world filled with undead abominations and beastly demons. Their only hope for survival? A modified Cadillac, which can shoot at the zombies and monsters that are chasing it, fuelled by your well-timed drum hits and guitar picks. Say what you will about Double Kick Heroes, but don't dare call its concept unoriginal. Just note that, while a story mode does exist, most are advised to skip all that and go straight to the main deal.

Unfortunately, this has some major problems right now. The most important one is that the synchronisation can be very odd at times, essentially ruining the core aspect of a rhythm game; rhythm. Even worse, the beats are many times tied to the wrong "notes," which results in something that lacks the feedback and feel that is expected from the genre. Long story short, this is currently not fun at all.

Fortunately, these are problems that one can hope that will eventually be fixed, this being an Early Access title and all - but this has more problems than just that. Double Kick Heroes actually requires to pay attention to the notes on the bottom of the screen, as well as the monster-blasting business on the top. This may sound a neat idea, but these two separate "games" aren't exactly blended together that well - something that becomes even more frustrating from the fact that you have to "aim," instead of simply having to move between distinctive lanes on the road.

...and it's all pretty repetitive, to be honest. Even if the aforementioned problems didn't exist, this simply isn't that fun - partly because the "level design" (the placement of the notes) isn't that good, but mostly because the driving force behind everything, the soundtrack, is a generic bundle of forgettable tunes. Yes, the pixel art behind the background and character design is awesome... but no one would ever buy a rhythm game on visuals alone, correct?