License to Grill Review (PC)

Here’s one for you to ponder: eight sentient sirloin steaks duking it out for a chance to put their friends into a furnace. If you haven’t heard that one before, then hey, join the club — we’ve got jackets…and peppercorn sauce, apparently. License to Grill is here, and it’s dialing up the heat to eleven in its à la carte of flame-grilled, protein-addled PvP battles. That’s right, even the cooked meats have joined the fray to ignite a feud of their own, and as a full-fledged culinary unit, no less.

License to Grill is as it sounds: a PvP battler in which eight meaty subjects come together to thrash it out over a series of short yet highly competitive physics-based bouts. As one of these custom proteins, you have a simple goal to accomplish: weaponize your genes and the random items located around the general vicinity of either a pizza kitchen or a food market, and use whatever tools you have in your arsenal to wage war on your foes. With each attack that you successfully land, a foe essentially receives an extra layer of heat. Simply put, the players who take the most heat damage lose the battle after a set period of time. And that, really, is all that you’re working to achieve in License to Grill: cooking your enemies alive in any way shape, or form.

While License to Grill isn’t the meatiest PvP game on the cutting board, it is one that offers a good selection of unique weapons to choose from, skins to alternate between, and two fairly sizable arenas that each come packed with their own environmental obstacles, scorched cesspits, and hilarious gags. If that’s a tall order that you wouldn’t mind taking a big ol’ bite out of, then be sure to read on.

Out of the Frying Pan…

At the center of License to Grill’s bite-sized oven is a doughy foundation that’s surprisingly easy to digest and roll with, so to speak. Admittedly, it’s a ridiculous  concept, and it doesn’t exactly push the boundaries of modern competitive gaming. That said, at no point does it strive to encapsulate a perfect dish; instead, it openly chooses to settle for a simple and, above all, palatable experience that favors hilarious shenanigans over the traditional strenuous gameplay fodder. And, you know, for what it’s worth, such an approach works incredibly well here.

The good news here is that, while the game doesn’t necessarily tout a treasure trove of enormous maps for its clientele to explore, it does boast a solid variety of weapons to work with, including a trusty Frying Pan, a Meat Tenderizer, a Pepper Shotgun, and, if you can believe it, a Fridge Door, the latter of which serves as your primary defensive tool during battles. Weapons cast aside, License to Grill also takes full advantage of its fast-paced physics-based mechanics to help you transform your environment into stupidly dangerous sandboxes. And that’s where the heart of the game comes into focus: in the high-octane shenanigans that unravel over shore but ludicrously entertaining fights. Again, it’s simple, and it’s mindlessly primitive — but it’s also a lot of fun, all things considered.

…And Into the Furnace

License to Grill isn’t a game that needs a tutorial; in fact, it’s a game that provides you with all of the tools of the trade right from the beginning and makes short work of its introduction. With that, it isn’t a game that you need to be experienced in to comprehend; it’s a game that thrives on pointless input and endless button mashing techniques. Like Party Animals, I suppose, but with fewer pudgy characters and more steaks and other violent proteins. The wacky physics and the rag doll mechanics, of course, serve only to illustrate that statement, naturally.

Of course, with fire comes smoke, and as with most PvP games, License to Grill has its share of plumes and limitations. Firstly, there are only a couple of maps for you to choose from, which means that you could, in all honesty, experience most of the world and all of its thematic trappings in a little under an hour. To add, the game doesn’t offer much more than the usual Free-For-All mode, which also means that you have very limited options for broadening your play time by indulging in alternate modes on the side. But frankly, these are minor issues, and things that could certainly be remedied in the future with the addition of DLC.

On the plus side, License to Grill plays incredibly well, with little to no technical issues or teething problems there to dampen the overall messiness that is, funnily enough, the game’s primary ingredient. Scratch that, there is one downfall: the fatal error message that stitches itself into the game at the worst possible moments. That’s a big one, though it isn’t an issue that can’t be solved with a bit of extra fine tuning and elbow grease.

Verdict

License to Grill is a bite-sized protein-addled battler that substitutes its lack of world-building with an oven that’s full of hilarious gags and digestible PvP feuds that ought to appeal to those with a fine tooth for unorthodox concepts and rag doll physics. It’s a small game that doesn’t deliver much replay value, what with the lack of maps and modes to chomp out. But then, to give credit where it’s due, it is one that packs enough of a punch in its short bouts, with a good selection of meaty weapons, tools and avenues for thwarting your opponent’s bloodlust to consider.

When all’s said and done, a fatal error or two is likely to sully an otherwise enjoyable experience. That said, if the developer can iron over the creases (or tenderize the steak) and figure out a way to add more meat to these bones, so to speak, I’d like to think that License to Grill will graduate from its provisional to a full-fledged PvP cookout. Again, it has the potential to become a standout culinary staple in the competitive world; it just needs a little longer in the oven so that it’s finally fit for mass consumption. Oh, and a few extra toppings to make it more filling, too.