Video games have, for a long time, offered a very specific type of power fantasy to players: a white, militaristic narrative steeped in nationalism where an unfeeling guy plows through evil Russians/Germans/aliens. They can be fun, but sometimes soulless and, at their worst, morally dubious.
Leave it to Strange Scaffold to give us the Wickian-Bourneian power fantasy of our dreams — one that sees a man taking down his own country's military for the simple crime of not leaving him the fuck alone. One that allows its protagonist to keep a diary, to whittle, to admire nature, all while he systematically dismantles a regiment of soldiers by using the skills they taught him in the first place.
It kicks ass and I can't wait to talk to everyone and anyone about it. This is I Am Your Beast.
Just the Facts |
Developer: Strange Scaffold |
Publisher: Strange Scaffold, Frosty Pop |
Platform(s): PC |
Price: $19.99 |
Release Date: September 10, 2024 |
Review key provided by developer via fiftyCC. |
HE'S IN THE WALLS!
Strange Scaffold is having quite the year. They've already released two games, the kidnapping sim Life Eater that intrigued us with its systems-focused gameplay and Clickolding, the game I called "one of the most interesting 40-minute games I've ever played." They're releasing VGG 2023 GOTY nominee El Paso Elsewhere on mobile devices — expected release: September 17 — requiring a full reconstruction of their development pipeline to do it. And they're supporting the development of Mighty Yell's All Systems Dance, showing their willingness to share the wealth with their peers.
You'd think they might slow down as we head into the back half of the year, but not unlike the eponymous beast in I Am Your Beast, Strange Scaffold just keeps going. (Who wronged this studio and set them on this unyielding path?)
In I Am Your Beast, players step into the undoubtedly blood-crusted boots of retired special ops agent Alphonse Harding. Harding is a man worn down by the job he once had, content to be retired and free from the organization that once asked him to do heinous things in service of freedom and the good of the nation. He's a man who's being asked to strap those boots on once again and get back to work.
You see, General Birkin of the Covert Operations Intitiative has moved soldiers into the quiet corner of the forest where Harding has retired, hoping to convincing him to sign up for the latest in a string of 'one last jobs.' But unlike those other protagonists of the games I mentioned in the intro, Harding knows better. He asks questions immediately. He doesn't let the red flags slide. Harding will kill a man for shooting an innocent little bird because he knows how broken they are — how tightly the hands of the governmental organization that gives them orders holds their reins.
He knows what they're asked to do because he was the one they used to ask to do it. And he's sick of it.
What I Am Your Beast pulls off is giving its players the feeling of being a professional soldier trained in improvisational chaos.
What ensues is a symphony of cathartic destruction: a version of the same kind of chaos and brutal elimination present in other shooters, but with an earned motivation through Strange Scaffold's storytelling. Through dynamic kinetic typography cutscenes — inspired by the same kind of typography animations that accompany YouTube videos of podcast bits and musical theatre lyrics — conversations between Harding and the various members of Birkin's forces unfold.
Studio Head Xalavier Nelson Jr. continues his streak of phenomenal voicework in Strange Scaffold projects by providing the unnerving calm to Harding's whole "pushed past the edge and there's no going back" vibe. His foil comes in the buttoned-up stuffed shirt of the militaristic middle manager General Burkin, as voiced by a frazzled Matt Curtis. Burkin's slowly unraveling sanity and confidence is portrayed beautifully by Curtis. But the real surprise is Brandon Jenkins as Byron Ford, a confidant for Harding amidst the chaos, the one person who provides easy conversation and who can make both Harding and the player smile through it all.
When all's said and done, Strange Scaffold once again leverages excellent writing and performance to turn what is otherwise the slightest presentation into one of the most effective stories I've experienced all year. What I love about "he's in the walls" media is the feeling that this character is some legendary killer that everyone knows they're hopeless to defeat — that stepping into the arena against them is basically signing your death certificate, even when the odds seem stacked against them. And I Am Your Beast pulls that off brilliantly in what is essentially just a radio play narratively.
But it always takes two to tango, and just as effective in selling that fantasy as this radio play is the high-octane, adrenaline-pumping first-person shooter action that fuels Harding's quest for revenge.
IT WAS JUST A JOB, SPARE ME!
I Am Your Beast is a run-driven FPS that has you entering small sandbox stages, stealthing around before picking a moment to "go loud" and set out to accomplish that mission's objectives. Sometimes it's as simple as wiping the stage of enemies. Sometimes it's accessing a few laptops and getting out or destroying satellites across the area. Either way, you start in stealth and have a few moments to scout the arena before beginning a round of murder and starting the game's internal timer.
The only way to achieve good times is to put Harding's best abilities to the test — to take the teachings of the COI and unleash it back onto them. Throw knives, make headshots, shoot red barrels to send bloody bits of soldiers flying across the forest. Each kill eats away at the actual time it takes you to complete each level, and the only way to achieve the top times, those A and S rankings, is to both find the quickest path from point A to point B and mix in creative kills along the way.
When we talk about feeling like an action movie star in games, we mainly talk about the cinematic feeling of games. What I Am Your Beast pulls off is giving its players the feeling of being a professional soldier trained in improvisational chaos. When a game offers you the chance to rip a bunch of headshots, whip your empty pistol at the head of an enemy, crush their stunned face under your boot, then grab the shotgun they lost in the process out of the air, just in time to blast the explosive barrel that sits in the middle of the crowd waiting to shoot you ahead? It's gonna be a good one.
While most levels could take you just over a minute to complete, it's the chase for the best time, for the side objectives that unlock, that take up the bulk of your time. If you're just looking to get through each of the game's 27 levels a few times, you'll finish in just a couple of hours. If you're looking to grab S ranks and accomplish all the side objectives and maybe even sprinkle in a few of the challenge levels, you're looking at somewhere closer to 5-8 hours of play.
If there's a game to lose hours chasing perfection with this year, it's I Am Your Beast.
What I appreciate most about I Am Your Beast — and I know this is going to sound strange — is how accessible it makes being a cold-blooded killer for players.
Not unlike Celeste and its much-applauded use of Coyote Time, a programming quirk that allows players to execute their jump for a bit of time after they've walked off the edge of a platform, I Am Your Beast has a ton of small things that make shooting and moving fast feel just right and more attainable. There's a bit of bullet magnetism that allows for quicker and easier headshots, especially when you're on the move. There's a quick-turn button that spins you 180 degrees with a press and gets you running back in the other direction as soon as possible. And, in a remedy of the one issue I had with the Steam Next Fest demo back in June, there's a quick reset that lets you throw away a bunk run in a moment's notice and get right back into the action.
All these things make what could be an intimidating game to play feel easy. Some of my best runs in the game were accomplished not by being the fastest or having the best aim, but by being smart with my weaponry and making the most of the environment. Like Neon White, a game I'd say is certainly in I Am Your Beast's family tree, Strange Scaffold's latest feels like it'd be enjoyable for players of all skill levels, and that's not easily done in any of the genres this game represents.
YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE RUINED MY DAY...
Reviewing I Am Your Beast was an interesting endeavor. The game was in my hands ahead of the game's initial release date, one month ago, and what I played there was representative of a lot of what I loved already. But the team made the difficult decision to delay the game to get it up to the level of quality they knew they could reach.
In that time, Strange Scaffold not only seemingly patched out the handful of bugs I faced in the initial playthrough, but managed to also add tons of quality of life improvements to make the game even better. They added a small but satisfying tweak to the game's level end screen: now, it initially shows your real-time pace through the level, and then pops up each of your kills to tick the timer down to that A or S rank you're chasing. They added an overview map that shows your exact path through a level and where, specifically, you got your kills.
It's encouraging to see the team make the healthy choice to delay the game, affording themselves the appropriate amount of time to stabilize it and, somehow, add more to make the game even better.
After this month of extra tinkering on the game, there aren't many major negatives left for me when it comes to I Am Your Beast. At times, I bemoaned a lack of variety in location and even weaponry, but Strange Scaffold implements its limited toolbox in such unique ways that I only really felt the lacking variety in that second playthrough. For a game that's so approachable, I was flabbergasted by the S rank requirements for some levels or the difficulty of some of the side objectives. But achieving greatness through repetition is what speedrunning culture is all about — and this is absolutely a speedrun-conducive game — so I can't fault the decision completely.
Other than that, the only real complaint I have left is that I don't have the free time to spend chasing lower times and 100% completion. If there's a game to lose hours chasing perfection with this year, it's I Am Your Beast.
And I can't finish out a review of a Strange Scaffold game without discussing the broader creative experience. From the comic-book inspired 3D art, with its thick outlines and easily readable enemies with their giant red goggles, to those aforementioned typography cutscenes, Strange Scaffold has a game that's damn easy to look at. And readability is so important in a game that's all about whipping around as fast as you possibly can.
When it comes to the listening experience, we've already talked about the incredible voicework on display, but it's finally time to talk about RJ Lake, Strange Scaffold's composer and audio lead. I'm not shy about saying I appreciate every single one of his soundtracks, and his latest is so effective because of how perfectly it aligns with the heart attack-inducing action of the game. Each track, powered by chunky synths and percussion that seems to magically sync up with your rapidly increasing heartbeat, meets the moment and perfectly accompanies that symphony of destruction I was talking about before.
I Am Your Beast is a bold statement from a team known for making bold statements. A game that showcases the studio's best strengths — narrative and sparse but effective presentation — with by far their best-playing game to date.
There are few games that make me feel as powerful as this does while still maintaining the fun that I Am Your Beast does.
I said it once, I'll say it again: I Am Your Beast kicks ass.
Video Games Are Good and I Am Your Beast is . . . GREAT. (9.5/10)
+ high-octane speedrunning shooter gameplay that's weirdly graspable, sparse presentation style used to its full potential, incredible voicework and soundtrack to top it all off
- lacking variety shows itself from time to time, some challenges feel too difficult
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