Kill It With Fire Review
It’s not the rain Incy should worry about
Everyone is afraid of something. For some of us its heights, or flying, or the overwhelming crushing existential dread that haunts our every waking moment. For others – its spiders.
Luckily, I love ’em. Having lived in a few rural-ish places, a big old spider popping out from under the sofa or chilling in the bath doesn’t stir me at all. I usually cup them in my hands and allow them to leave via the window; I’ll get defensive if anyone suggests squishing them, maybe I even quite like them.
That being said, Kill It With Fire somehow instilled in me the kind of pathological arachnicidal rage that I so often questioned in others. I was willing to douse my home in petrol, set it aflame, and cheer as it burned to the ground. There was shrieking; there was crying, I felt like an early Lets Play YouTuber performing to an audience of one.
Just say no
So, what is Kill It With Fire? Well, to put it in its simplest terms – a hellspawn simulator that gives you the ability to eradicate the swarm of spiders occupying your otherwise spotless house by any means necessary. Rather than helplessly swatting at the skittering critters, you can employ such weapons as a handgun, ninja stars, and of course – a home-made flamethrower. Your tasks are relayed to you on a clipboard (another nifty weapon), adding a sense of tangible scoring to the anarchic mayhem.
The house has a simple layout, carefully cluttered with items and utensils, all of which react to fire, force, and gravity in endlessly satisfying ways. You can follow your instructions to the letter… or you can smash up every TV screen in the house and set fire to the piano.
Kill It With Fire is the weird antidote to months of lockdown we didn’t know we needed. It’s excitement in the mundane, it’s absolutely ridiculous, and it’s wildly energetic. It may seem overly simplistic at first when you’re splatting the occasional spider, but the swarm grows with time, making hideous chirping noises and somehow brings out the worst in everyone.
Sometimes the cup and paper isn’t enough
The potential here for a multiplayer game is great. Every moment of gameplay is so utterly frantic, twirling and throwing things and yelling at the spiders as though they can hear your cries. Once you’ve demolished the house, there are other levels and spaces to destroy, taking out what swiftly becomes one of your hardest foes. Their speed and creepy ability to latch onto the back of things unnoticed makes them a tricky enemy to defeat, but failing the stealth approach, you can always blow up entire rooms just in case.
If you’re genuinely afraid of spiders, I guess this one might be a bit much. But for anyone else, it’s a great excuse to let out some latent rage. One particular joy is the ease of aiming – turning this into a bit of a spider-themed FPS at times if you so choose. Some of the challenges are optional, but the satisfaction of adapting your killing methods to encompass some wild scheme is worth the additional effort.
There may be questions raised about the price point, but the game truly proves its worth with mini-missions, unlockables, power-ups, varying types of enemy, and fully-realised environments. You can easily spend hours messing around with this game, coming back to it time and again for something intensely cathartic. The sinister little noises the spiders make as you draw near will be twittering in my ear for some time.
Ah yes, cheese puffs, the deadliest of tools
Some of the weapons and missions, as one would hope, are utterly ridiculous. You can throw cheese puffs, smash up photo frames, and even find a top-secret room if you’re dedicated enough. There is plenty to explore, and if you’re anything like me, you will enjoy the wonderfully satisfying sounds things make as you squish, crack, and smash them.
Kill It With Fire can be a little buggy, but in the same way, any charmingly bizarre game tends to be when their premise relies on simplicity. Occasionally items will hover or get stuck in walls, or fall through the floor, but it doesn’t detract from the fun. There is no real reason to be gripped by the game other than the sheer determination to wipe out the constant waves of impending nasties, so if you’re looking for depth – this ain’t it. Saying that, this would be a weird place to come for such things.
It is what it is – an effective and stupidly addictive spider-killing and house-smashing game. There is, quite honestly, nothing more to say other than… kill it with fire.
[Reviewed on PC]