The only goal of the first-person shooter I Am Your Beast is to kill people quickly. You could theoretically still manage to make it to each bite-sized level’s exit intact by stumbling around aimlessly like an Australian breakdancer at the Olympics, but achieving the best completion time requires repeated runs to chisel out the most effective killing paths gradually. The result is a fast-paced, three-hour-long explosion of blood spray and cel-shaded bullets, enhanced by incredibly smooth controls and an engaging soundtrack that makes you want to keep playing. The only real drawback is that the unquenchable desire for speed leaves little room for a compelling storyline amid the constant barrage of brutal headshots.
The brief narrative draws inspiration from films such as Stallone’s First Blood and Schwarzenegger’s Commando. In I Am Your Beast, Alphonse Harding, the main character, receives a last-minute call from his former military commander. When he continues to reject it, a series of miniature sandbox shootouts ensue in which Harding, the prey, is forced to take on the role of the hunter to repel an ever-more-agitated guerilla army. There are no true cutscenes to speak of; instead, stressful radio conversations between each fast-paced battle are portrayed as large text blocks on screen, much to a Metal Gear Solid Codec exchange with the character faces cropped out.
Though I can not say that I was especially immersed in the characters in the ultimate showdown, these extremely simple tale moments at least allowed me to catch my breath and decrease my racing pulse rate after a spree. More than anything, that was probably the effect of their rudimentary presentation, which made the story’s ending seem a little underwhelming.
Perusing in a Winter Wonderland
That the 27 comic book-style murdering sprees that intersperse between each fictitious plot point kept me feeling so fantastic is a good thing. The hectic battle style of I Am Your Beast leaves no room for ammo collection or slowing down for cover, so there is never a quiet moment. Rather than laboriously inserting rounds into your depleted shotgun, you simply dump it by launching it towards an adversary, causing them to fall to their knees and then dispatching them with their handgun, which they obligingly toss toward you upon being hit (much like the antagonists in Superhot).
A bear trap can be quickly snapped shut around a sentry’s skull and you can go quickly on to your next kill instead of carefully placing it in their path and waiting for it to go off. As you race to make the most of every single-use assault rifle and combat knife you can get your hands on in each snow-swept hinterland hunting area, weapons are quickly gathered, used up, and thrown away.
It is all about ruthlessly taking out heads at a blurry, fast pace, and its dependable snappy controls make it a constant joy to do so. Harding, who is always running, may scuttle up and down rope lines, then descend to crush the skull of a guard and seize their machine gun before their just shortened corpse touches the ground. He can coolly shoot hornet’s nests off high branches to fall upon groups of guards and kill them in clumps, saving time and ammunition. He may also slide under fallen trees to obstruct enemy snipers’ line of sight.
Except for a few infrequent instances where I got caught on some landscape, I Am Your Beast usually stayed friction-free and footloose while I ran lap after lap through its harsh gauntlets to cut seconds off my best times.
Even while a few of its shootouts are a little repetitive, they add enough variety to the mix to make the majority of its firefights feel new for the duration of the game, if not longer. I had to shoot the evil men on one level since Harding was hurt and my health was slowly declining. I also had to look out for medkits and medical plants to temporarily stop the bleeding, which made my escape feel even more urgent.
In one instance, I had to disable an array of satellite dishes that were arranged in a row to thwart the imminent threat of an enemy airstrike. The destruction of each dish would cause the shower of hellfire to be delayed by a few seconds at a time. A threat that sends a rocket up your ass gets under your skin like nothing else.
Last But Not Beast
Throughout its campaign, I Am Your Beast does a great job of stacking the deck against you, but if you use all of the tools at your disposal, it always feels doable. During an intense mid-game battle, I had to fend off insurmountable waves of heavily armored guards, deadly bursts of high-caliber machine gun rounds from an attacking helicopter, and dead-eyed snipers. If it were not for the fast-level restarts that threw me right back into the action without any loading screens, I definitely would have switched from beast mode to anger quit after my first few repeated deaths.
But as I started to learn where the medkits and munitions were and carefully prioritize my targets, I was soon able to survive and even thrive throughout the encounter; it felt incredibly satisfying to finally blaze a killing trail from one end of the arena to the other, transforming from rambling fool to Rambo-like killing tool.
Verdict
I Am Your Beast is a captivating, bite-sized shooter that manages to survive despite its straightforward plot and somewhat harsh development. I felt like a one-man army unleashed on waves of gullible foes thanks to its incredibly responsive controls and an easily accessible arsenal of pick-and-slay weapons, and its stringent time-based objectives and bonus goals made me want to replay most of its levels to keep improving my strategy. I Am Your Beast was angry enough to sever my fingers and hold onto me for the duration of its brief visit, even though it lacked a genuinely distinctive hook to set it apart from the rest.
