As many of you know, the most recent Weekend Sale on Steam is a strange bundle of games known as the Potato Sack, which includes Indie darlings Audiosurf, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Super Meat Boy, as well as the 6-player zombie-shooting, catchphrase-spewing delightfully over-the-top FPS known as Killing Floor, and quite a few other relatively obscure titles, such as the game I’m reviewing today, 1… 2… 3… KICK IT!, a game almost as obnoxiously awkward to type as Dejobaan Games’ cathartic “Why the fuck would you ever jump off a building, you god damned moron” simulator, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! With the introduction out of the way, let’s begin.

Let me begin by saying that I enjoyed AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, and found it to be a somewhat refreshing break from the crushing reality of my crippling fear of heights, faceless corporate buildings and any sort of ring-shaped objects floating in the sky. It’s addictive, and it has some very enjoyable sections where you just drift, while some deadpan comedy goes on in the background. I especially found the mountain levels enjoyable, perhaps only because they made me think that a supervillian in a ski mask was right behind me, cackling maniacally while I continued my precarious descent down the loamy (It’s a word. Look it up.) slopes. In short, it held my entertainment for far longer than it had any right to, and so, when I heard that Dejobaan Games were crossing their system of frenetic, fast-paced falling with an Audiosurf-esque level generator system based around my music, much sweet, black coffee was spat. When I sat down to play it, I was immediately assaulted with a warning, emblazoned in large, friendly letters, stating that KICK IT! was a work-in-progress, and should be taken as such. It did not give me much optimism for the experience ahead.

The first thing I notice is that the game auto-runs in windowed mode, which is usually only reserved for the Poor and Irish. While annoying, it didn’t really hinder my experience of the game, and so I moved on, to discover that all music must be moved to a separate folder, in order to be used to generate levels. Another annoying flaw, but, to be fair, there’s not a great deal of my music that I’d enjoy listening to while plummeting through a floating city. I set up some Daft Punk, and got to playing. The actual gameplay is almost identical to AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, with the annoying exception of being made to shoot potatoes at enemy ships on occasion. There’s really not much else I can say about it without digging up what I’ve already said about AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, so just replace all the things I said about good level design and funny deadpan humour with levels which bore about as much resemblance to my music as a thing that bears little resemblance to something else which one would think it would bear resemblance to. In short, if you want the bad parts of Audiosurf combined with the bad parts of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!, you should probably fork over your money to the almighty Gaben in the sky. Until this game is fixed, it will not be enjoyable. Simple as.

TL;DR: WAIT FOR DEVS TO PUT THEIR GAME FACES ON, OTHERWISE, DO NOT BOTHER.

This is Infinite Power, and I haven’t decided on a sign-off line yet.