Party Animals (2023)

Yes, Party Animals is "yet another one" like Human Fall Flat, Eggstraction, Witch It and many others.

You play as an animal like a cat, dog, fox or trash panda, each with their own facial expressions.

You gather up some friends, load a map and start battling each other by throwing your opponent off the map.

Each map has certain hazards that speed up the elimination progress. You can throw each other of conveyer belts, let your opponent getting crushed between a hammer and simply throw them off a ledge.

Graphicly, this game looks alright. The animations and physics are also fine. The music is silly and fits with the theme.

The controls are horrendous and sluggish and many times, you do not have any feedback that you successfully grabbed or pushed an opponent.

You can grab with both limbs separately and yank them towards you or towards the nearest death pit.

For some reason, Party Animals has one of the worst matchmaking systems ever. In the core, you just invite people and play, but sometimes you get popups about the free version of the game, the paid version, "only the host can invite you", friends that do not show up etc. Etc. I still have no clue how to play with strangers or how to find a public game to this day.

Yet again, this game is fun with some friends on a LAN party or a random Friday night. Playing it alone or with strangers is boring and because so, I will not play this game other than with friends.

I do not think this game is worth almost 20 euros. For this reason, I cannot recommend it when you look at the basic content and game modes, that Party Animals offers.

I used to play Gang Beasts a LOT back in its hay-day, so to see another game pick up the helm of a physics-based beat-em-up to the DEGREE that Party Animals has is really cool to me. The gameplay just SCREAMS Gang Beasts and reminds me of it a lot, which is why I love it so much. The maps are all interesting and (for the most part) fun, and the powerups and weapons are a nice little twist! It never fails to make me laugh when a cute fluffy corgi throws a haymaker at a enemy player and knocks them into oblivion. Plus with a bunch of other game modes and even a few campaign levels, this game is just endless fun to be had.

One gripe I have is that on some maps it can be fairly easy to just get knocked out and thrown off within a matter of seconds, which can be pretty frustrating if you're a new player. But in my eyes, this is just a overall, simple, fun experience to be had.

It's a solid multiplayer which has some resemblance to Fall Guys. Mascots are wobbly and awkward, but after a few games you start to see a deeper level implemented into fighting/movement mechanics. It is fun all around, but there are some major issues within the game.

1. When you die you wait and can shoot items which can disrupt surviving players. It gets old quite quickly.
2. You play in teams, so if you queue up solo and your random leaves, the game adds AI to your team. Let's say that AI is not the best in this game.
3. It takes 6 goals to win when you play team games (soccer, hockey, football etc.). When the team looses 3 - 0 it's more than likely that your 4 people team forfeits and just runs around instead of playing properly.

All in all, Party Animals has some flavour of competitiveness, but it stumbles on delivery.