SWAPMEAT Review: Fresh Meat | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: PC (Steam)

Price: $16.49

SWAPMEAT is a roguelite and one of those games that I needed to sink my teeth into (pun intended) to fully appreciate. The first couple of runs, I thought the game was neat, but I didn’t really see its full potential until I started playing with friends. While SWAPMEAT is fun solo, playing with friends is much more fun (and manageable). The game went from having some quirky humor to opening up into something with real strategy and depth. Add in the community events that launched alongside the game, and SWAPMEAT became a game that I consistently returned to, even after my review period had ended.

SWAPMEAT is full of '90s and early 2000s humor. Fans of Rick and Morty or Aqua Teen Hunger Force will appreciate the writing in SWAPMEAT. The art certainly leans heavily into that style, as does the story. The narrative is quirky. I play as an operative for Rangus Meats, a corporation that dives down to enemy planets and harvests their meat core, making Rangus Meats more profitable. I think I’m playing a bad guy, but there aren’t really any good guys in this universe. Other evil corporations are also out to get their fair share of the meat, and I need to dive down, pillage the planet by completing the prime directives, and escape before the timer runs out.

My character is mushed-up meat squeezed into a hazmat suit named Squishy. However, this isn’t its final form. Each planet that I descend onto has creatures that, once defeated, drop different body parts (head, torso, legs) that I can pick up and swap to best suit my needs, thus the title SWAPMEAT. Each body part has different abilities with their own cooldowns. One of the strategies in the game is to litter the ground with different body parts and run around swapping them out, never having to worry about waiting for an ability to recharge. Of course, I need to keep moving to complete the primary directives while watching the timer count down, so I can’t just stand around picking up meat.

Combining the different body parts is the real highlight of the game, creating some really powerful abilities. Getting a flying body part along with legs that let me move quickly gave me the ability to fly farther and faster, helping me reach my objectives much more quickly. Discovering each body part’s powers is fun, and it’s the foundation the entire game is built upon.

If the timer hits zero before I complete all the primary directives, huge Meat Hunters arrive, trying to disrupt my run. I can’t kill them, but they can slow me down. They become a real nuisance. They use long, sticky, tongue-like weapons that keep me from moving. They beat me around, and I bounce all over the place. All of this keeps me from completing my objectives. It’s best to avoid them at all costs.

There are secondary objectives that I can complete to either add more time to my run or level up my weapons. Like a lot of roguelites, I’m offered a few different options to upgrade my in-run weapons. These weapon upgrades carry over from planet to planet during a run, but once I complete the system (by clearing several planets and defeating the boss) or die, those upgrades disappear.

Because it’s a roguelite, there is some progression in the game. There is the employee rank. Completing runs gives me XP that levels up my rank. As I rank up, I unlock new weapons and perks that can appear during my runs. Then there are resources that I can collect and trade with a kiosk called Trader Mike. These can be used to unlock new weapons or purchase other items from Trader Mike. This system was more complicated than the employee rank system, and it didn’t open until I beat the first boss.

The boss battles are very intense, and it’s best to play with friends. Not only did it allow us to strategize more (each boss has a weakness, and it was easier to discover those weaknesses together), but we also died. A lot. Having friends there to revive me was the only way we were able to make it past the bosses. I’m sure it can be done solo, but it would be much more difficult.

While I loved each run, the game isn’t without its flaws. There were moments when I would go through walls and end up blocking my line of fire. The biggest issue we found while playing with friends is that the fire button is the same button used to pick a power-up, and I often found myself blasting away only to accidentally select a perk I didn’t mean to get. The game is a bit fast-paced, and the environments are well crafted, but I never really got a chance to appreciate them because I was constantly jumping from one prime directive to the next. Overall, though, these issues were minor and didn’t keep me from enjoying the game.

Final Score: B+

SWAPMEAT is a fast-paced roguelite that is best played with friends. At first, the game seems like a silly cartoony shooter (and it is funny) but after playing a bunch of runs, I started to see the strategy behind the different body parts and combining them to create some really powerful builds. The boss battles are intense and far more manageable playing with friends. One More Game is constantly adding community challenges and updating the game, which adds to the replayability. If you are a fan of Hell Divers and like 90s and 2000s humor, this is a game that should be added to your collection.

Review code provided by Lambsmith PR and Press Engine