Big Drunk Satanic Massacre from Big Way Games, or BDSM, is an isometric shooter where you take the role of Lou, Prince of Hell, and embark on a mission filled with demon slaughtering, sexual innuendos, and a whole lot of boozing. Normally this is my ideal setup for a game, but the Nintendo Switch experience is bogged down by bad graphics, and worse controls.
Visually, this is a Switch port at its worst. You’ll find low framerates, extremely scaled down graphics, and barely visible text. There’s no aiming reticle, so I frequently forgot my position, and missed shots in battle. Additionally the game lacks a damage indicator common in most games, so you need to look down at your health bar constantly. I don’t fault Big Way for the Switch’s hardware limitations, but I do question porting it in the first place, if essential elements like that are cut from the final product.
The controls are awful and uncomfortable. Your movement is tied to the left stick, with aiming controlled by the right. Moving the right stick will make the character model snap to face that direction with no animation, which is jarring, and shoddy looking.
My strategy was rotating both sticks simultaneously to shoot in a sweeping motion while strafing. Because of the Joycons’ size and placement, this isn’t sustainable for more than a few minutes at a time before your thumbs wear out. The game was clearly designed for a mouse and keyboard, but no adjustments were made for controller play.
The sound design is mediocre. Voice acting is bad, although this somewhat serves the premise of the game. The generic metal music and “hell-like” sound effects are inconsistent in quality. If the super powered Rage Mode is active (acquired by stacking up combo kills) all of the sound becomes distorted. This also happens during the framerate drops in combat.
Underneath the muck, there’s actually a fun plot and great low brow humor here. Granted, I have a 13 year old boy’s sense of humor, so while I enjoy the cursing, farting, and sex jokes, I know that content isn’t for everyone. But if you’re a gross child at heart like me, it’s enjoyable.
Please note: As the name implies, this is a mature-themed game with sexual content. But there are settings for various age levels in the options. So if you want something tamer, you can adjust the levels of violence and sexuality on display.
BDSM is obviously a work of parody. There’s crude references to DOOM, McDonald’s, Family Guy, and many other pop culture icons. It sets out to make you smile, shake your head, and occasionally roll your eyes. And it’s pretty damn good at it, but it’s just not worth the torture of acutally playing the game.
Occasionally a studio’s design creativity rises above the Switch’s hardware weaknesses, and even if the end result is a bit neutered, I’m usually able to appreciate the effort. Unfortunately BDSM misses the mark. Not enough was done to cater to the Switch’s strengths to make up for the loss in quality. Either play this game on PC, or skip it altogether.
~RJ
DFAT was giving a review code of this game
