Chop Goblins

Having just come off of a crazy holiday season, I want to start 2023 with something small, something simple and something that will reaffirm my love for gaming. You know, ease into the new year. And as far as I’m concerned, there’s no better way to do that than to play Chop Goblins, a new retro-inspired first-person shooter that looks and feels like it came straight out of the mid-1990s. This is a short and fun throwback where the goal is to jump through time in an effort to defeat a whole bunch of low-poly goblins before they take over the world. Also, Dracula shows up. Yeah, this is the perfect way to start what will hopefully be a great year.

Although it may look like it came out of the 1990s, Chop Goblins actually takes place in 1984. It stars an unnamed protagonist who decides to break into a local museum’s basement in hopes of finding some rare treasure. Unfortunately, what this wannabe tomb raider finds is a chest full of strange creatures. To make things worse, this chest was a secret prison for the chop goblins, an especially mean and brutal group of enemies that will stop at nothing to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting public. Now it’s your job to chase these goblins down and keep them from destroying too much of your home town.

This is the setup to a short but sweet adventure that will have us following those pesky goblins through time and space. It’s a simple first-person shooter where we navigate our way through complicated level designs, all while picking up bigger and more destructive weapons along the way, such as a shotgun, an automatic rifle that shoots stakes and even a magical staff that works a lot like a missile launcher. Of course, as we collect an arsenal of unique weapons, those dastardly goblins are getting stronger and meaner, and worst of all, they’ve recruited a few friends to help in the fight.

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From a gameplay perspective, this feels a lot like those early Doom clones. When you’re not shooting down goblins, you’re desperately searching the maze-like levels for more ammo and health pick-ups. There are no recharging shields here, just a single life bar that won’t last very long when you’re swarmed by chop goblins. And don’t expect to be saved by the checkpoint, because once you run out of health, you’re tossed all the way to the start of the stage to do it all over again.

The good news is that the five stages are long and varied. At some point we start jumping through time, which gives the game license to take us to Dracula’s castle or drop us off in ancient Greece. Does it make sense? Not really, but who cares? It’s fun seeing the all-too-brief story try to justify every plot twist, and I love how every level comes with its own unique group of bad guys to kill. For a game that won’t take you much more than an hour or so to beat, Chop Goblins takes you on a real roller coaster ride that you won’t soon forget. Developer David Szymanski has done a great job of giving each part of the game a sense of personality, all while making sure that it never overstays its welcome.

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If the name David Szymanski sounds familiar, it’s probably because he was the developer behind the critically-acclaimed game Dusk, a first-person shooter that was clearly inspired by the genre greats of the 1990s. And while Chop Goblins is clearly going over some familiar ground, it doesn’t feel like a repeat of David’s greatest hits. This game has its own personality and sense of humor, once again reminding us that this developer knows a thing or two about making great throwback shooters.

That said, I do wish the experience was a little bit longer. While I like the bite-sized nature of the game, I couldn’t help but wish it was extended with a couple more levels. It feels like it ends right as it’s starting to pick up steam, and I found the ending to be a bit on the anti-climactic side. The good news is that beating the fifth stage opens up a new game plus mode, and you can also try your luck at the hardest difficulty, if you feel like you’re up for the challenge.

Of course, it’s hard to complain too much about the short length when the asking price is a mere five dollars, especially when the quality on what is here is so damn high. I’m a big fan of the level designs, the guns and the challenge, even on the default “Fiend” difficulty level. Chop Goblins isn’t a game that simply looks the part; it also manages to remind us what was fun about the early days of first-person shooters. This is a great way to spend an hour or two.