The first thing that strikes you about this game is its title. Vox Populi, Vox Dei – what the hell does that mean?
I’m not the smartest of people (and I only know enough Latin to understand what the letters at the end of TV shows stand for – happy MMX everyone) so I had to look it up.
According to Wikipedia, it means “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” Wow. That’s a pretty deep name for a game. I wonder what it’s about?
Killing werewolves!!
Hmm. Why is a game about slaughtering werewolves called…
Never mind, I’m sure that’ll get explained later.
Anyway, slaughtering werewolves is cool. Not many flash games I can think of actually have werewolves as bad guys and I think they’re overlooked in all types of fiction. Sure, you have films like An American Werewolf In London and others, but in modern-day productions they tend to be a little, well, underused.
There are films such as Underworld (where the vampires have Kate Beckinsale on their side so are already better in my eyes) and TV drama Being Human had a werewolf, but media tends to stick with the more popular monsters such as vampires. Even with Twilight pussifying the vampires, I doubt this state of affairs will change anytime soon. (Apparently there are also werewolves. No doubt they’ve been pussified as well. Do they sparkle if you shoot them with a silver bullet?)
Do a little research into the vampire caesarean scene in one of the later books and you’ll realise that Stephanie Meyer is batshit insane.
So even if the werewolves are the bad guys in this game, it’s still good to see the balance redressed a little.
The game starts with your hero (who looks a bit like Cyclops of the X-Men) being told his ex-girlfriend has been kidnapped by the hairy villains. After a couple of screens that tell you the basic instructions you finally get to take on one of the bad guys and HOLY CRAP!
Blood physics!
Our hero just leapt across the screen like a… well, like a wolf, and then ripped that sucker’s guts out! To kill the enemies in this game you have to tap the space bar rapidly and send blood spewing all over the screen. Quite satisfying in a sadistic way. You can also crush them by leaping at them and knocking them off cliffs.
BOOSH!
I know people will do a lot of things for love but this guy appears to be going a little overboard.
It takes a few seconds to kill the baddies (meaning their deaths must be really painful) and this adds tactics into this blood-fest. The werewolves can shoot orange bullets at you by tearing open their chests (odd) and if they see you killing one of their brethren, you’re finished.
You also have the ability to go invisible, so you don’t have to kill every werewolf (but they kidnapped your ex-girlfriend, so frankly they’ve got it coming to them). You become visible if you touch or attack a baddie.
This makes every screen a kind of gory puzzle, and it really is quite fun. There are also weighted platforms to get past, adding to the puzzle elements.
The only downside to this game is that it is incredibly short, but it is very well-crafted and great fun while it lasts.
But it never does explain why it’s called Vox Populi, Vox Dei. Perhaps that’ll be explained in the sequel, which the creator has now started work on.
Play it now: Vox Populi, Vox Dei
Written by: Richard Wilson
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