IHarding and Burkin’s story may sound like that of a law firm, but these two have a long history on the battlefield. Harding was the brilliant special ops agent who could get anything done, no matter how bloody. Burkin was Harding’s agent, and now he wants him back for one last job. Harding retreated into the woods long ago to start a new life, so can Burkin get him out at gunpoint? How far will each go? And, lost together in the wilderness, who’s really hunting who?
This is the deliriously pulpy premise of Strange Scaffold’s latest action game, I Am Your Beast. What follows is not so much Rambo as an exploration of the way Rambo has taken up residence in memory, all trees and traps and body counts. Strange Scaffold is known for creating frenetic, relentless games at a frenetic, relentless pace. I Am Your Beast is another masterpiece of liveliness and efficiency. Playing in three hours, it’s a first-person shooter in which you’re always outgunned but endlessly resourceful. Even the longest of the game’s “micro-sandbox” missions is over in 90 seconds, and gone before you’ve had time to register the fact that the level names sound like Jack Reacher novels: Late Shift, Breakdown, On Your Six.
It all works very neatly. A beautifully streamlined design offers fast first-person movement that lets you crouch under roots one minute and leap between canopy branches the next. Meanwhile, the sandbox approach to the action involves grabbing enemies’ weapons, using them until you run out of bullets, and then throwing them at any nearby targets for a final burst of damage rather than slowing things down with boring old reloading.
There are elements of first-person shooters like Mirror’s Edge and SuperHot that fuel this game, and yet I Am Your Beast remains entirely distinct. The speedrunner pace sets it apart, but there’s also a belief in the notion that simpler mission structures, when combined with pleasingly generic fiction, will make for more exciting action. Activate three laptops, target five satellite dishes, just kill everyone you encounter – the objectives are repeated, but they breathe endless life into the game’s comfortable but complex arenas. Short health bars and the repeated structure of attacking and then disappearing beyond the tree line mean you’re always left feeling like you got away with it.
I Am Your Beast thrills because the details are brilliant and well-chosen. Take cover on the fly by grabbing some nearby herbs. Let the enemy’s impregnable attack helicopter pick off groups of your enemies in helpful bursts of collateral damage. Kill people by kicking them off cliffs or even jumping on their heads. Every encounter is a chance to keep the pace of the carnage as inventive as possible, while the increasingly desperate radio chatter of your enemies narrates the bloodshed and splatter as if they’re providing the commentary for a grisly Olympics.
In fact, that feeling is at the heart of it all. Beneath the smoke and spent cartridges, I Am Your Beast is playground warfare turned sport. In this forest, on this battlefield, you can perform acts of frightening excellence. And if you can’t get it right the first time, you’re always one restart away from perfection.
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