Hyper Jam Review

One of my favourite games of the past few years has to be Hotline Miami, a twitchy top down brawler/shooter/kill-everything-in-sight game with a killer synth soundtrack that you wouldn’t feel ashamed to put on your playlist. The reason why I bring this game up is a direct comparison to Hyper Jam, as it borrows all the great things from Hotline Miami, its twitchy gameplay, it’s rocking synth sound… but it has one major difference.

It’s Multiplayer Only.

Hyper Jam is a 4 player top-down brawler set in a neon-infused future where players attempt to bash each other with an assortment of weapons in a last-man-standing style fight. The goal is to rack up enough points by killing or doing enough damage to reach up to a match point, where they just need to survive one final round in order to win.

Strangely enough, this makes for a well balanced and nail-biting system. Players have a health and weapon durability bar that allows them to use their weapons a set amount of times, each weapon can be charged for a bigger hit, with mixed results at full charge. For example: The Katana will charge forward for a cool ninja slice, Hammers will stun opponents, while Rocket Launchers will lock on to opponents.

Players also comes with a basic punch attack which does little damage but can help stun opponents for a short period of time and knock them back when charged giving you some distance to get away or even use an environmental kill. Meanwhile a well-timed block can deflect range attacks or stop an opponent in their tracks leaving them open for a counter attack.

After everyone is dead and only one players is left standing, points are tallied up and players are ranked, if the points have not been reached, the fight continues but each player is given an additional perk with the loser given the opportunity to pick first.

Perks ranges from having faster attacks or movement, a shorter cooldown, to stronger attacks or modifiers like burning and freezing. These perks are usually not a game-changer at the start, but as the perks continue to stack up, fights can drastically change.

The game is surprisingly solid as everything gets put together, controls are tight and the visuals are great leaving it a great Party Game for friends to beat each other up on.

However there lies an problem with longevity. No single-player campaign, arcade or survival mode leaves playing with bots the only option if your playing solo, and it taken me a long time to find a match online. Levelling up does give you emotes and some cosmetic upgrades, however despite my attempts to find it, I could not see how these unlockables were accessed.

Hyper Jam is enjoyable and at best when you’re playing with friends in a free-for-all brawl. It’s controls are easy to pick up, the way the perks are used is fair and makes the game interesting, and the soundtrack is great, but it doesn’t give you any reason to play outside of a group.