Game Review: Metal Hammer – Roadkill (Mobile – Free to Play)

Metal Hammer: Roadkill came along with a bit of a fanfare promising to be the most ‘metal’ game ever (have they not played Brutal Legend?) & to its credit it is definitely deserving of that accolade at least within the spectrum of mobile devices.

So Roadkill…a free to play game that is a hybrid of a runner & rhythm game where you tap one side of the screen in time to the music playing to kill the enemies that run towards you with a giant hammer.

It looks pretty & with songs pulled from the record label Nuclear Blast’s catalogue of artists the music is enjoyable even if you’re not a fan of a lot of the bands. However there is a real lack of content & I had finished every level & track within an hour.

There are two modes…campaign & single track with the latter giving you the option of choosing a specific song. In campaign you’ll find a tutorial & 3 levels made up of 2 tracks each.

Riot de Janeiro (Sabaton – Resist & Bite/Suicide Silence – You Can’t Stop Me)
Westmonster (Epica – Unchain Utopia/Hammerfall – Hector’s Hymn)
Hellywood (Exodus – Blood in, Blood out/Threshold – Watchtower on the Moon)

You have the choice of two difficulties, normal or hard. The difference being precision as on normal difficulty you can get away by effectively button mashing. The controls work simply but not without problems. Your character runs automatically so all you need to do is press on the left or right of the screen (red buttons appear) as enemies reach him.

A red enemy is hit with the left button & a blue enemy is hit with the right button. The game can get quite frantic especially during really heavy parts of the songs. Occasionally you may have to hold one of the buttons down to deflect enemy lasers & it is here that the controls let you down. There is just the smallest amount of lag before & after you’ve had to hold a button down meaning you often get hit especially when having to go from one to the other.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal if it one hit didn’t cause you to lose your multi-plyer. It makes for 100%-ing a song near impossible.

You can gain a little help with power-ups that are bought with guitar picks. These are earned while playing through levels & the game is fairly generous with them. You can buy them with real money of course but there isn’t a need too.

If you’re going to spend any real cash in this game then I would suggest buying the extra world Rockjavik that includes 2 new songs; Accept – Final Journey & Immortal – Rise of Darkness. It’s only going to give you 10-15 minutes of extra fun for £1.49 which is hardly worth it.

You can also buy individual songs to play, they are:

Sabaton – To Hell and Back
Vadar – Triumph of Death
Cradle of Filth – Hammer of the Witches
Devil You Know – Seven Years Alone
Epica – The Essence of Silence
Hammerfall – Bushido
Suicide Silence – Inherit the Crown

Each song costs 79p which might seem good value for money but do I really need to remind you of the amount of quality & fulfilling games available for the exact same price?

Finally the size of the writing in the Rock Shop is so small that anyone with sight problems would struggle to read it.