Gorilla Vs 100 Men Review (PC)

It isn’t the first time internet meme culture has spawned a video game adaptation, and so, the hypothetical question of who would win in a fight between a silverback gorilla and a hundred men is, in all honesty, a fitting extension to the increasingly dominant nature of absurd video games and their tendency to latch onto stupidly unorthodox ideas. In the case of Gorilla Vs 100 Men, an introduction isn’t really necessary; it’s about as commonplace as a beach towel on a Mediterranean island. And the game, in general, doesn’t require much of an introduction, either, for it wears its heart on its sleeve, and its hypothetical scenario in a physics-based world that’s about as ridiculous as the question itself. Go figure.

If you’ve played Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, then you should have a vague idea of how this works. Like the imaginative warfare generator, Gorilla Vs 100 Men invites you to put the ludicrously barbaric notion into a plausible narrative; who will win in a fight — a silverback gorilla, or a hundred unarmed men? To find out, you must put your mettle to the test and duke it out the good old fashioned way. And by that I mean, flail your arms around and pummel your pounding fists until all but one combatant remains. It’s a simple concept—a stupid concept, at that. Yet, like meme culture in general, it just works; it carries a harmless appeal that just feels communally laughable.

To answer the question of whether or not Gorilla Vs 100 Men is worth the commitment — yes, I suppose it is, providing that you enjoy moronic arguments and physics-based battlers that harbor just as many errors and janky mechanics as they do compelling features. But more on that shortly.

Asking the Real Question

Gorilla Vs 100 Men slots you into the make-believe boots of the titular silverback gorilla—a monolith of a creature who bears the brunt of a meme, as well as the brute strength of an empire and a fleet of ballistas. The idea is simple: a gorilla enters a battlefield, and a hundred humans vie to defeat it in a seemingly graceful manner. With that, your job here is as equally straightforward: mash the buttons in no particular order, and rag doll the enemies to death before they thwart your oppressive power and fabricate the idea that humans are the dominant species.

To state the obvious, Gorilla Vs 100 Men isn’t in line to win any accolades for its mechanics of its airtight world design. Oh no, what you have here, once you remove the lid from the fact that it is, with all due respect, a mockery of an empty-headed meme, is a flaccid sandbox brawler that relishes the need for mindless rag doll violence and primal humor. With that, there aren’t many stylized mechanical pieces for you to enjoy. Instead, you have but a small handful of tools to work with: a pair of clumpy fists, a shockwave power, and a fart tactic. Regardless of the weapon you choose to adopt, though, the gameplay usually relies on your ability to mash the same buttons several times over and sweep the floor of all its humanoid conspirators. Simply put, you don’t need to be an expert to pummel people into submission.

Against All Odds

Gorilla Vs 100 Men comes with just two modes to work through: the bread and butter Classic mode, which invites you to duke it out with the standard hundred humans, and an Unlimited mode, which grants you the opportunity to eliminate infinite waves of enemies in exchange for cashless incentives and bragging rights. Aside from that, you also have access to a small but notable collection of customizable items—gorilla skins, fur colors, cosmetics, and even some random headwear accessories, to list just a few of its added wardrobe features. It isn’t much, but it does broaden the appeal, if only by a small amount.

Unfortunately, there are still several loose screws here that could do with a bit of extra tightening—the visual glitches and frequent roadblocks that prevent you from finding enemies, for example. In the handful of sessions that I endured in Gorilla Vs 100 Men, I did have the issue of having to restart the battle due to enemies failing to spring out from beneath the woodwork. A minor problem, but one that definitely dampened the overall experience, nonetheless. As luck would have it, though, there wasn’t much else to point the finger at. I can’t say that it was a smooth experience, but it certainly achieved what it set out to do — and that was to create a mindlessly fun and enjoyable experience out of a fish-out-of-water internet meme. I guess that was enough.

Verdict

Gorilla Vs 100 Men is exactly what I thought it would be: a half-baked yet annoyingly entertaining sandbox battler that substitutes fluff for unadulterated arcade violence and high-octane rag doll physics. It isn’t the greatest battle-hardened ring bearer of its kind, nor is it one that brings a lot more to the table than a simple, almost numskull-like idea, for that matter. But it does, on the other hand, generate some pleasantly satisfying action-focused encounters with an oddly powerful array of combat elements and maneuvers, as well as a solid selection of game modes that provide a unique experience with each passing scenario, to boot.

For the record, Gorilla Vs 100 Men isn’t going to extinguish the flame beneath your all-time favorite arena fighting game, much less hold a candle to the vast majority of the top-tier Battle Royale brawlers that make up the category. It isn’t in receipt of the same level of shoddiness as Skull Island: Rise of Kong — but it doesn’t exactly boast an ironclad gameplay experience, either. It’s an acquired taste, if anything; the rag doll physics bode nicely with its overall clunky charm and general aesthetic, but at the same time, the lack of fluidity and grace make for a pretty chaotic experience. If that doesn’t bother you, though, then you shouldn’t struggle to gloss over the messiness of the remaining pieces of the puzzle.