
Soon, there are weird purple wizards that launch projectiles, shield-bearing strikers that must be attacked from the side or rear, and eventually boss monsters, which appear in a random order and have unique attacks and weak spots. They arrive via burning portals, which appear randomly across the arena floor, and at first they’re simple creatures that only have a melee attack.
GAME FACE TORMENTOR SERIES
Rather than spawning in a series of waves, the horrible bastards spawn in a single wave that goes on forever, as far as I can tell. They’re the only other living inhabitants of the arena in solo mode (there is two-player co-op, of which more later) and they’re awful things. Whatever the specifics, demons are always the perpetrators. I’ve been shanked, shot, burnt, flattened, stabbed and exploded. The similarities are found in the small, flat and featureless arena that is the entire playing field, and the one-hit kills that will make your play-time on each attempt brief and tense. Where Devil Daggers is nightmarishly surreal and unnerving, Tormentor is like an explosion in a blood bank that takes out the neighbouring comic book store and guts factory for good measure. Visually, the two games have very little in common, beginning with that change of perspective but going straight through to Tormentor’s artstyle. Top-down Devil Daggers was the phrase that popped into my brain when I first played Tormentor X Punisher back at Gamescom last year. “Let’s fucking do this!” she yells at the beginning of every round. They are the snarling aggression of the marine character, as she tears through the hordes of hell.

Some of these come from the person playing the game, some come from spectators, and there’s another variety that come from the game itself. Some are triumphant (FUCK YEAH), some are awestruck (Fuuuuuuuuuuck) and some are short, sharp exclamations of frustration or despair (fuck).

Tormentor X Punisher is projected onto a wall in a dark space in San Francisco and it fills the room with “fucks”.
