Anger Foot is Like John Wick with Some Extra Kick

Fast-paced first-person shooters may be a dime a dozen these days, but Anger Foot has a unique gameplay hook that is literally kicking the door down for your attention. This colourful and completely chaotic shooter from the makers of Broforce is like a first-person take on the compelling, room-clearing carnage of Hotline Miami, with an emphasis on using your left foot of fury to violently smash a path through locked doors, obstacles, and gangs of anthropomorphic animal enemies. It’s a shoot and boot ‘em up that feels like John Wick with some extra kick, and I enjoyed the two hours I spent playing an early build of Anger Foot every skull-stomping step of the way.

There are guns too, of course, but the pistol in your hand is merely a support act to the size 12 snuffer of life at the end of your left leg. There’s no ammunition to pick up and reload, instead once you’ve run out of rounds to chamber you just throw your empty gun at an enemy to stun them, jump-kick them into next week, and catch their freshly dropped uzi or shotgun before carrying on your merry, murderous way. Enemies can be booted directly into their friends behind them like dim-witted dominoes, and there’s never any shortage of explosive gas canisters or oil barrels to be found in each gang den you crash through, allowing for spectacular chain reaction kills – or your own instant death should you accidently shoot them at close quarters.

In fact, I’ve died a lot during the two-dozen levels I’ve played so far, since you’re every bit as vulnerable to one-shotted deaths as the enemies around you. A continually shuffling roster of enemy types and combinations meant that Anger Foot consistently kept me on my anger toes, forcing me to find new strategies to most efficiently deal with each new threat. When riot gear clad birds arrived I started firing off a round to make them reflexively raise their shields so that I could run in and boot their bulletproof barriers straight back into their beaks. Meanwhile I was delighted to find that the grenades thrown by puffer jacket-clad goons could be volleyed back at them with a well-timed kick, forcing them to watch their own bomb blow up in their faces like they were the producers of the Madame Web movie.

Surviving all the way to each level exit earns you a star, but there are a further two stars to claim per level for optional challenges such as completing a level within a stricter time limit, or killing a certain number of enemies using only your foot. Some of these additional objectives seem seriously challenging, and although each level only takes a couple of minutes to complete I can see myself spending hours trying to earn all the stars in the finished game – although I don’t know how I’m supposed to beat a level in under 30 seconds when I keep getting distracted by the playable Broforce arcade machines found along the way.

The more stars you earn, the more special shoes you can unlock and lace up, with each pair of kicks granting you a unique gameplay buff not unlike the animal masks from Hotline Miami. You might strap on a pair of high tops that earns you a precious round of ammo for every bad guy you boot in the face, or slip into a pair of sneakers that activates a big head mode to make it easier to headshot enemies from long range. I also found footwear that could charge up kicks into room-clearing dash attacks, as well as another pair that let me come back from the dead once per level. Talk about a sole revival!

I also unlocked a slightly embarrassing pair of socks with sandals that allowed me to deal extra damage during boss fights, although this did mean that I was able to easily stomp out Anger Foot’s first major boss like it was a house spider under a work boot. Given how tricky the levels that preceded it were, including one against an unseen sniper that instantly snuffed out my sprints between cover, it seemed slightly disappointing to dispatch the leader of the Violence Gang with a mere handful of half-hearted highkicks. Hopefully there’ll be some heavier head honchos to contend with in the three other gangs to take down in Anger Foot – namely the Pollution Gang found in the sewers, the Business Gang found in the high rises, and the Debauchery Gang found in… I don’t know, one of P. Diddy’s mansions, probably.

Basic boss fights aside, Anger Foot’s evolving combat and cartoonish charm kept a goofy grin on my face during my playtime, and its rousing, bass-heavy techno groove had me tapping my toes while I was capping my foes – from rooftop shootouts with heavily-armed gangbangers to subterranean stoushes with snakes and giant squid tentacles in the sewers below. It remains to be seen if the instantly gratifying action of Anger Foot will have the anger legs to go the distance in the finished game, but based on what I’ve played so far it seems like this is one frantic first-person shooter that’s truly putting its best foot forward.

Tristan Ogilvie is a Senior Video Editor in IGN’s Sydney office. He likes to wear sneakers… for sneaking. Follow him here.