Quake II meets Geometry Wars in Hell is the easiest way to describe Devil Daggers, the hot new endless shooter taking the internet by storm.
Graphically and gameplay wise, Devil Daggers is reminiscent of old-school first-person shooters, meaning everything is brown, pixelated, and moving fast. The left mouse button fires shells out of your hand either in a burst by clicking, or a stream by holding. Bunny hopping, strafing and dagger jumping—clicking the fire button while aiming at the ground—are necessary as the playing field is a small, circular platform surrounded by darkness. The goal is to stay alive for as long as possible while endless waves of enemies assault you until one of them touches you, ending your short-lived life.
Enemies consist of squids made of bone that spew skulls, devil heads, giant skulls that spawn spiders, flying centipedes, and a giant bone fortress that I’ve yet to see personally. As creepy as the enemies are, their sound effects are equally creepy as with a good audio setup you’ll surely hear them sneaking up on you. If you take enough enemies out you’ll upgrade your weapon to fire faster with a wider spread, and eventually even daggers that zip around the stage automatically killing enemies for you.
Enemies are near constantly spawning and attempting to end your life. These consist of squids made of bone that spew skulls, devil heads, giant skulls that spawn spiders, and flying centipedes. As creepy as the enemies are, their sound effects are equally creepy as with a good audio setup you’ll surely hear them sneaking up on you. Luckily if you take enough of them out you can upgrade your weapon to fire faster with a wider spread, and even daggers that zip around the stage killing enemies for you.
Currently, my longest life lasted just over a minute, and while I often don’t like games that are hard for the sake of being hard, this one is an exception. Devil Daggers knows exactly what it is and owns it; there are no tutorials, no frilly options and only one achievement to be had. This is a game for the hardcore player who gets obsessed with besting their previous score or topping the scores of their friends; luckily there is both a world and friend leaderboard that allows you watch replays of anyone you’d like.
The hardcore difficulty and lack of menus will be enough to turn some players off, but for those that stick it out, you’re in for a Hell of a good time.
