Veggie Warfare: Feast of Fury Review (Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S)

If there was ever an advertisement that could coerce a carnivore into vegetarianism, Veggie Warfare: Feast of Fury wouldn’t be it. It almost pains me to admit it, too. But, the harsh reality is that, for a game that has the meat and two veg to craft a card-loaded banquet with all of the fatty seasonings to make a pleasurable dining experience, Veggie Warfare sadly falls short in almost every aspect of its ideology of being a culinary staple. It isn’t a feast for the eyes or a protein-packed love letter to Serious Sam; it’s a mushy cardboard cutout that wants you to feel satisfied with the items it shovels down your throat, but doesn’t provide the ingredients to make a stomach-lining treat that can swill on the precipice of your palate and curb your insatiable hunger for substance. And I’m barely nibbling the tip of the iceberg here, believe it or not.

Veggie Warfare wants to be a great rogue-like first-person shooter, and it wants to entice you with a solid selection of weapons and upgrades in the hopes that you’ll choose to stick around for some good old-fashioned carrot-bashing chaos for a handful of hours. Yet, when it comes to serving its banquet of bullet-addled shootouts, it immediately loses sight of its potential and falls into the salad bowl of mediocrity. The stiff movement; the wonky hit boxes; the dull setting; and the concerning lack of technical polish, for example. In just a couple of minutes, you begin to realize that Veggie Warfare isn’t a guilty pleasure for the soul; it’s a charred mess that leaves a nasty taste on the tip of your tongue and nothing more.

Suffice it to say, the concept here is great: a troupe of mischievous vegetables with a lust for blood decide to run rampant and wage war against the world for the sake of avenging their fallen kin. I don’t have an issue with that. In fact, I’m willing to give it the credit it deserves and say that, as far as ridiculous ideas go, Veggie Warfare makes for an annoyingly appealing premise — at least on paper. But then, it’s everything else that drags it down—the uninspired map designs, the half-baked shooting mechanics; and the simple fact that you can stand inches away from an onion and still miss a shot even when the target is right between the eyes. It becomes infuriating, and it quickly transitions from a laughable experience to a tedious one that just makes you want to abandon the kitchen and feast at another table.

In an effort to counter its loose canon nature, Veggie Warfare does take full advantage of the traditional rogue-like progression system. For instance, when you beat a wave and repel enough enemies, you unlock a perk—an ability, if you will, that allows you to either deal more damage, launder more ammunition, or boost your overall speed. The problem is, even with a belt of perks beneath you, the gameplay rarely ever changes. A new round begins, and once again you find yourself fleeing from a flock of sweetcorn, peppering bullets in random directions in the hopes that one of them will make an impact. And then, as if to illustrate the shoddiness of the game, it crashes, leaving you to stare at a black screen and itch for a well-overdue refund. The process repeats, yet the hunger remains.

With a short-sighted world and only a handful of goals to accomplish, Veggie Warfare quickly becomes less of a treat and more of a sickeningly dull blood sport with only a few palatable moments to enjoy. With a combat system that leaves a lot to be desired and only a handful of perks, weapons, and maps to work with, the journey soon slips into a monotonous cycle of unhinged rage and frustration, which ultimately leads to a disappointing experience that harbors more negatives than positives. And, again, it’s a shame, as it has that edge that would effectively allow it to be a great game. It’s the execution and the lack of pre-launch polish, however, that dampen the appetite and make it more of a choking hazard than a buttery smooth delicacy with a memorable flavor.

Beneath all of its flaws and graphical glitches, Veggie Warfare has a lot of breathing room to grow in the near future. Granted, it takes a tremendous effort to visualize its potential, given the fact that most of the experience is either made up of falling victim to the same irritating conclusion or volleying back and forth between technical errors. That said, it has the capacity to deliver a great rogue-like shooter with a ton of great features. Sadly, though, the odds of it ever finding stable ground and remediating its core weaknesses are painfully slim, mainly due to the lack of support that the developer has given since its inception. And that’s a crying shame, truly, because it could have made for a genuinely interesting sleeper hit in the FPS spectrum.

Verdict

Veggie Warfare: Feast of Fury is a bit like suffering from the caveats of intermittent fasting — you crave substance, but frequently remind yourself that, if you can withstand the stomach cramps and feeling of emptiness long enough, then you’ll be rewarded with a satisfying payout. The sad reality here is that, even when you do remove yourself from substance, you never really receive the stomach-lining rewards at the end of the fasting period. Instead, you just get left with an even wider void in the pit of your stomach, nothing more, nothing less.

While Veggie Warfare does have some great ideas and a neat rogue-like twist to it, the fact is, it doesn’t make for a satisfying meal, for it lacks almost all of the necessary ingredients for it to achieve its desired effect. With a lack of technical polish and a trove of broken assets (and not to mention a whole bunch of graphical bugs and game-breaking glitches), Veggie Warfare falls short in terms of its ability to make a protein-packed meal that can easily fill a hole in your stomach.