Hatred

Hatred is a trite twin stick shooter. Fortunately it ends in a few hours.

It’s just unremarkable, which is disappointing after all the remarks we all made about it. It’s just a game. It’s mediocre. It’s run of the mill. It’s another indie game that uses another established formula to give us a few hours of repetitive gameplay that may or may not be to your liking. It doesn’t do anything grand and innovative, but it also doesn’t do anything wrong or heinous outside of its own overhyped controversy.

It is without a point. It fires its Uzi rounds aimlessly and manages to hit nothing. It’s not bad, it’s not horrific, it’s not reprehensible and it’s not memorable either.

When the first shock of butchering helpless people passes it turns out that this forbidden fruit is nothing but a seed. I could point out that it’s a good thing that Hatred depicts murdering innocents as a boring, laborious, frustrating chore but after having played it I’m in no mood for jokes. [08/2015, p.70]

The greatest controversy of this game lies in its boring gameplay, unbearable stereotypes and recurring errors that will soon start killing you. Fortunately Hatred will take three hours on hard difficulty so your suffering won´t last long.

Ultimately, I believe that the Hatred team simply tried to make something controversial in the hopes that nobody would notice how forgettable their title is. Even calling itself ‘ultra-violent’ is a stretch.

With an unimaginative outset, a try-too-hard look and controls that are almost unbearable, not even the most hardened tabloid newspaper should get offended by Hatred.

If you can overlook the horror of it all – something that’s surprisingly easy, given that Hatred is far more toothless than it thinks it is – there’s several hours of mindless if mechanically competent gaming here, artificially lengthened by a punishing degree of difficulty.

Hatred delivers some fleeting sadistic satisfaction and a gorgeous art style, but quickly becomes a tedious chore. After all the controversy, it's disappointing that the finished product is mechanically flawed and otherwise completely forgettable.

Hatred isn't a bad game for its violence. Is a bad game for its mediocre gameplay, control issues, poor enemy AI and simple and repetitive mechanics.

Hatred is quite simply a less than mediocre game that has received way too much attention.

A grim part of me actually looked forward to this. Good or bad, I thought we’d get something provocative or remarkable in some way, shape, or form. Instead, we got a prosaic and outmoded little pile of cynicism. Perhaps worse than that – we got a damn boring game.

If you strip away the totally overrated and needless controversy sparked by the first trailers, you’re left with what? A mediocre twin stick shooter with nice art design and totally redundant mechanics that is not worth a second look.

Hatred is a mediocre twin stick shooter, a miserable attempt to shock the audience with violence that turns out to be a major failure.

I have to kill everbody. It works, but it's a primitive piece of garbage. It's so bad, it's almost funny.

Not offensive enough to cause outcry, not good enough to warrant paying attention to. [Aug 2015, p.60]

Why do we need Hatred anyway when we have GTA?

The game is boring, repetitive, and simply not fun.

When the context and controversy of Hatred is stripped away, players are left with an off-putting and boring shooter, offering little but a sense of unease and repetitive gameplay.

Hatred is a game that basks in controversy for the sake of controversy, while doing nothing to keep the curious interested in seeing it through.

Ultra violent and desperate to shock, but this is far too boring and repetitive a game to either love or hate.

Hatred is too repetitive to be exciting, too dumb to be frightening, too basic for you to feel accomplished at its end, too dour to be violently cathartic, too self-serious to engender ironic amusement, and yet still too childish to matter...essentially, it's a nothing of a game.

Hatred fails to both be a properly working game and to thoroughly shock. While it does its best to hammer its 'no philosophy'-philosophy home, it doesn't make much of a statement at all.

This game has received undeserved attention only because of its controversy, that is even used the wrong way. Gameplay? Lousy.

At its worst, it’s the gaming equivalent of a drunkard shouting abuse from a park bench. At its best … well, the drunkard has leapt up and now he’s wielding a plastic knife. Rage against political correctness if you like, but don’t support this tired game as part of your ideology – there are so many better uses of your spare time.