REVIEW – David Jaffe is responsible for some of the good old PlayStation exclusives such as God of War, and the Twisted Metal series. Both franchises were weird, gory, and featured fast-paced action, but after much silence, Jaffe returned with Drawn to Death: a third person shooter set in the fictional world of a teenager’s notebook. While Jaffe is a master of brutality and the macabre, but here it seems Jaffe misfired like an RPG hitting the wall instead of a player.

That was supposed to be the return of Jaffe, but I’m wondering if he should have bothered at all.

Johnny, my boy!

The game has no story, and basically, the entire game is just a teenager’s figment of the imagination. That results in the graphics and the overall design being from an actual edgy teenager. The graphics are black and white plus some red/orange/, etc. to signify blood and explosions. Plus the weapons and pick up items also have their own unique colors. The characters also have special skins that can be switched around, but they are nothing special and come off as try hard. You have a weirdly drawn frog that insults you constantly, but also works as a tutorial to provide you with information. The jokes are 99% are a miss, and do not provide any substantial humor for the player.

The controls are fine, and the movement is slick. However, there is a severe lack of weapon physics for the game. Controlling the character is fun, but as mentioned: the shooting gameplay element is barebones.

When selecting a character, we can add skins to it, to make it look more diverse from the crowd, pick three weapons that we start with, and three weapons that we wish to see to be picked up on the battlefield. These weapons range from RPGs to rifles, and even tanks and our characters also have two special powers that can be used after it is recharged.

Regarding graphics and sound, the game is just meh. It is a mesh of styles, and while the art style is intriguing, it could have been much better if some effort went into designing the levels of the game. You can barely make any differences out due to their black and white designs Sound is average, with nothing special to note, and some of the weapon sounds feel lifeless.

Hit me up with the edgy!

Ah well, as much as I wanted to dislike the game entirely, some of the shooting is still fun. It reminded me of the good old Quake 3 days. However, even with all the nostalgia I can’t help but feel that this game is only good as an F2P video game, and any minimal cost that needs to be paid after the PS+ promotion ends should be considered theft.

There’s no story (other than the tutorial), the modes are generic, and nothing interesting is done with the art style of the game. The shooting is ok, and the gore is appreciated, but it does not feel like a David Jaffe game from its prime, and instead feels like a hackneyed forced thing that needed to be pushed out the gate.

If you missed out on the promotion on PS+ for this game, do not buy this attempt from Jaffe. He can do better.

-Dante-

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Developer: The Bartlet Jones Supernatural Detective Agency

Genre: Third-Person Shooter

Release date: April 4, 2017