Review: 101 Ways to Die

If you are one of those people who likes to know the box quote pitch for a game before buying it, I will give you the most apt one for 101 Ways to Die – it’s Lemmings meets Saw.

[youtube id=” qoZUr12WAQk ” align=”center” maxwidth=”530″]

The game is a physics-based puzzle/trap-building title with a dark sense of humour. The premise sees you become the assistant to a stereotypical mad scientist named Professor Splatunfuder (yes, that is indeed his name). You are tasked with helping him recreate a book he was working on, appropriately named 101 Ways to Die. To achieve this, you must construct the experiments he needs to catalogue the numerous ways a person can die (aneurysms are not included).

The game is split across just over 30 levels, each laid out with a multitude of pitfalls, spikes and vats of dangerous liquids. By default, the minions Professor Splatunfuder has created for these experiments, the Splats, will be able to avoid these and make their way to the exit. However, that is where you come in.

The game will allow you to manipulate the environment, by placing devices throughout the map to divert the Splats to their doom. The enjoyment comes from chaining these traps together into devious layouts Jigsaw would be proud of. Using a catapult to fire a Splat into a mine, thus propelling it into the path of a motion detecting cross-bow certainly brings an evil smirk to my face.

As well as killing the Splats in the most imaginative ways you can think of, each level has goals to achieve – tasking you with killing the minions in pre-defined ways. You start each level with a limited number of items and the puzzle aspect involves placing these devices in just the right way to pull off the kills. Completing tasks earns you stars for each level which in term unlocks more levels to complete.

Of course, with such a diverse set of contraptions to use, limiting you to one or two to achieve your kills is required to provide a challenge in the game. However, I could not find any mode that simply allowed you to play around with the maps or explore stringing vastly different tools together. This is disappointing as outside of the game’s story mode, there is little else to explore.

Another issue with the game is the lack of any fun or interesting characters. The Professor is a generic evil scientist stereotype. If he had any funny dialogue or quips, this may be forgivable but he is as bland as weak tea.

Equally, the Splats have zero personality or charm. Perhaps because you need to use Lemmings to complete levels in their games, they do show off some of their characteristics there. However, Splats are simply used as victims, with no reactions outside of screams or shouts of pain.

Despite these issues, I did enjoy playing 101 Ways to Die in short bursts. While you are not given freedom to fully explore the arsenal at your disposal, you are given enough opportunities to use everything. The levels are imaginative and stringing together death combos can become addictive.

I just hope what I wrote above doesn’t make me look bad…

Tags: 101 Ways To Die, Four Door Lemon Ltd, Lemmings, PC, PlayStation 4, Saw, Xbox One