My Night Job (Video Game)
Developed by Webcore Games
Available on Steam and PlayStation 4 (reviewed)
Growing up in the early days of Atari, I couldn’t wait for games to evolve and look better. As an avid gamer, I watched the evolution of game engines and graphics grow up from Pong to Uncharted 4. That being said, there’s been a retro-gaming renaissance lately that has fielded a few okay homages to gaming’s golden years, but many (and there’s a shit-ton of them out there) have just missed the mark and helped flood said renaissance with all manner of pixelated nonsense.
I cannot tell you how sick of these games I am. That being said, give me horror-themed anything, and I’ll try it out. Little did I know that one of these small throwback games would become one of my favorites of the year. If you’re a horror fan, believe me when I say My Night Job is the Phantasm game you never knew existed.
The premise is very simple… throw in as many homages to horror movies as humanly possible without getting sued, and then create an arcade-style game whose only objective is to get the high score and populate it with them.
Save the victims; get power-ups. Yes! I’ll take a rabid nuke cat! Thanks!
You play as a balding pony-tailed hero who drives an ice cream truck by day and helps to exterminate all manner of nasties by night in a sprawling haunted mansion. All the while you’re saving victims who are strewn about the mansion by running into them (a la Zombies Ate My Neighbors) and having them follow you to an escape helipad. You can have an entourage of up to ten victims at a time, and usually once they’re saved, they’ll drop some item to help you save even more. The best part? There are special “victims” who look suspiciously like Chucky, the Tall Man complete with floating sphere, Sadako, and many, MANY more.
Where do you find them? What conditions must be met for them to show up? That’s for you to experiment and find out. Pro tip: Some of the victims have weaponry and will fight alongside of you. This is very common for the special victims discussed above. You may want to try to keep them as long as you can.
One of the many themed rooms. Poltergeist anyone?
As for the mansion… it’s broken down into multiple rooms that are all kept track of via a small map in the right-hand corner of the screen. If an area becomes too crowded with creatures, they begin to wreck it. Each room has health bars that go from green (healthy) to red (dead). You can still enter these rooms when they’re completely destroyed, but no more victims will spawn there. If four rooms are destroyed, the game is over so you’re gonna have to run from floor to floor at a breakneck pace to make sure you save the 100 required victims to win the game.
A lot of the rooms are also themed to famous horror flicks like Poltergeist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Halloween; and each is riddled with weapons, some of which are special, like the chainsaw that, when the button is pressed to use it, makes your character do a very familiar spin that is sure to bring a smile to your face.
How about some Motel Hell – complete with severed pig head – action at the helipad!
In a nutshell, that’s all there is to it. Save 100 victims and keep the rooms in good shape, and you’re a Reggie Bannister-like hero who can take on creatures from any dimension. You’re hot as love, man, you know! Be warned… that’s a HELL of a lot harder than it sounds, but that’s the fun of it!
I cannot recommend this game enough… I just wish there was more of it! Here’s hoping it sells well (at less than $7.00, it should) and we’ll get some DLC or even a sequel. Bless you, Webcore Games, for doing retro right and for giving us all what is nothing short of a love letter to the horror genre.
Wait, is that a louver door with a jack-o-lantern in front of it complete with knife and knitting needle on one side of the room and a framed picture of the Tall Man on the other? Sure seems that way, and I love it!
-
Game
Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
