Metal Tales: Fury of the Guitar Gods

Rock 'n roll is ugly. It's loud, noisy and even a little dirty. It's a genre where you don't need to look like a model or movie star to become a sex symbol, and proper hygiene is definitely not required. Nuberu Games seems to have taken this mantra to heart, as their brand new heavy metal shoot-em-up is one of the ugliest games I've played this year. But even with the dark and dreary visuals and laughably bad character designs, I had a good time shredding through Metal Tales: Fury of the Guitar Gods.

This is the story of the Guitar Gods, who have spent decades entertaining the masses with their powerful riffs. What you may not know is that these influential figures have been turned into monsters, and instead of spreading the raw energy of their music, they've been using their concerts to turn unsuspecting metalheads into demon-possessed creatures of the night. In other words, it's basically the thing Pat Robertson has been warning us about for fifty years.

This goofy premise sets up a roguelike shoot-em-up the likes you've probably seen countless times before. It's the type of game where you blast your way through randomly generated stages, take on powerful bosses and save the metalheads from spending the rest of their lives as soulless puppets. But don't rock too hard, because dying means starting over from the very beginning without any of the items or power-ups you collected in your journeys.

Like a lot of roguelike shooters, the idea is to play through the game multiple times and complete challenges along the way. These objectives can be anything from buying something at the item shop to clearing out a certain number of rooms. You earn points for completing these challenges, which you can use to permanently upgrade your rock star. This gives us access to new moves, abilities and more. It's the thing that will keep you coming back after you've lost everything fighting that tough boss battle.

Beyond that, the action is pretty straight-forward. You run around cramped rooms shooting in any direction and dropping bombs shaped like guitar amps. You collect money and buy items at the shop. You run around in circles taking on waves of enemies. You dodge saw blades to open treasure chests. It's all stuff you've seen before, only this time with a fun heavy metal twist.

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Unfortunately, the goofy gimmick and solid gameplay is largely undermined by the horrible low-quality graphics and boring levels. You would think that a game revolving around the power of heavy metal would have better art direction, but what we're given are boring, monotonous stages with muddy graphics and repetitive obstacles. We fight the same batch of enemies in the same dull environments and get the same results. Even the sunny outdoor stages are needlessly dark and dreary, creating an atmosphere I would rather not be a part of.

This is especially frustrating because everything else fits into place. The gameplay may be on the shallow side, but it gets the job done and is both fast and fun to play. The game also has a fantastic soundtrack that is surprisingly motivating, helping to hype me up for each battle. The visuals are the weak link here, and the ugly character designs and lame backgrounds put a real damper on the entire experience. Heavy metal is a genre known for its visually rich and detailed cover art, and none of that is on display in Metal Tales.

If you can get beyond the disappointing graphics and short campaign, you'll find a fun little shoot-em-up with a goofy gimmick. It would have been nice to see the heavy metal theme expanded even further, but the flourishes we get do go a long way to help it stand out from the large pile of dual-stick shooters clogging up Steam. Metal Tales: Fury of the Guitar Gods is more of an opening band than the headlining act.