Anger Foot review: kicking ass to the beat of hardcore techno

In Shit City, crime rules supreme. All its residents are either gang members or in the police force. And even they have a skeleton or two in their closet. There’s only one person standing up to all this criminal scum: Anger Foot. To get back at him, the mobsters rob four of his beloved pairs of shoes. But the masked sneaker head anti-hero isn’t about to take it. Time to kick some ass!

The story of Anger Foot is just as nonsensical as the world in which it takes place. However, all the different gangs really breathe life into the game and give it personality. There’s the Pollution Gang, which consists of rubbish fetishists. Or the Debauchery Gang that’s home to all the hedonists. The throne’s been taken by the Crime Minister, who pulls all the strings. In other news, I keep stumbling across strange experiments that suggest the population was spawned in test tubes. But maybe anthropomorphic animal creatures are also just normal in Shit City and knife-wielding tentacles are just daily business. But there’s no time to think about these things. The story’s just an afterthought in this fast-paced action game that barely gives you a second to catch your breath.

The PC game was created by Free Lives. The South African studio has already created a bunch of bangers including eco-building game Terra Nil, party game Genital Jousting and the 80s pixel firework Broforce. Anger Foot has the most in common with the latter. So it’s not surprising there’s also an Easter egg in the game.

Sprint, kick, shoot

Anger Foot consists of five chapters with various levels. The boss of each gang awaits at the end. Each level usually takes no longer than a minute. Provided you make it to the end at the first attempt – which never happens. Anger Foot may kick really hard, but he can’t take much. After just one or two blows, it’s over and you start the level from scratch.

The game structure reminds me a lot of Hotline Miami. The only difference is that Anger Foot isn’t played from a bird’s eye view, but from a first-person perspective. And instead of pixel graphics, you can expect a colourful comic book look. I usually sprint from room to room, roof to roof or sewer to sewer – depending on where my mission takes me. And kick everything away that crosses my path. One kick in the butt usually finishes off the gang members. These could be police pigeons wielding shields, dog people armed with Uzis or the guys with bombs for heads.

I can also kick open doors and, ideally, slam them into an opponent’s face. There are also explosive barrels, as well as various weapons. These range from ordinary pistols to miniguns and toilet plungers. The latter can be used to pull opponents towards you like you would with a grappling hook. There’s no reloading. Instead, the aim is to hurl your weapon at someone’s face before picking up a new one.

To successfully complete a level, you have to make decisions and react at lightning speed. Blam! I kick open the door and watch two gangsters fly through the air. I then have the presence of mind to return a grenade to its sender before putting my last bullet through the head of another bad guy. The fourth one I stun with a well-aimed throw of my empty weapon. Before he comes to, I hurl him into a red barrel with my giant green foot, which finishes off the remaining enemies. At times like this, I feel like John Wick.

But more often than not, the door I kick in doesn’t take down a single enemy and my gun misses the mark. The slightest mistake is immediately punished with death. Just one moment of not paying attention and a crocodile-faced gangster’s hitting me over the head with his barbed-wire baseball bat. Then it’s no longer me bobbing my head to the techno soundtrack, but the remaining opponents dancing to it like there’s no tomorrow. It’s so gloriously daft it makes me laugh. And that’s great, because in spite of all the absurdity, Anger Foot is nerve-wracking to play. When I’m giving a level a go for the 30th time, only to get hit by a stray bullet at the worst moment, my table sometimes feels my Anger Fist. Fortunately, all it takes is one click and you’re up and running again. Foot first. The missions are short and varied enough not to feel repetitive.

Which shoe fits?

When I finally make it to the end of a level alive, my heart’s pounding in time with the techno. I catch my breath during the mission selection, when the music temporarily drops from 200 BPM to a relaxing 70-BPM hip-hop beat. At the end of each mission, I can see how I’ve done. In addition to the time it took me, I’m also shown how many enemies I defeated and which challenges I mastered. Apart from receiving a star for successfully completing a mission, I can earn two more. An optional objective can be not to use firearms, to beat a predefined time or to use certain footwear, which is unlocked with the stars.

There are over 20 shoes to choose from – from trainers to sandals to stilettos. All of them act as power-ups. The Scavengers supply you with ammunition when you’re killing enemies. With the Slide Kickers, you can, well, slide and kick. And the Holy Sandals give you a second life. But my favourites are the Detonators. They make doors explode on impact. Amazing! Even if I regularly blow myself up accidentally.

But all this different footwear isn’t just for entertainment. Without the right shoes, you usually have zero chance of beating your own record times in the levels. And even with the right shoes, you won’t always manage. The levels require tactics. Only by trying again and again, do I find the right approach, the perfect time to attack a certain opponent, which door to kick in and where I shouldn’t be kicking a barrel about.

Keep calm and listen up

The missions are mostly structured fairly. Only occasionally, it’s not entirely clear what hit you. The murder marathon’s is sometimes interrupted by sections where you don’t have to kill anyone for once. These intermediate areas allow you to get to know Shit City a little better. If you want, you can also run straight to the start of the next level. However, it’s worth having a chat with the city’s residents.

Short text boxes give you an insight into their dreams or what else is going on in their lives. One member of the Pollution Gang, for example, is hoping for a world consisting only of rubbish. The caretaker of the Business Gang, on the other hand, is happy to have the least dirty job in the company. Of course, after our chat, I send them all flying with my trusty kicks without batting an eyelid. That’s Shit City for you.

At the end of each chapter, the gangster bosses get to meet my shoes. For once, I’m not sprinting straight ahead, but have to prove my skills in a typical closed boss arena. These fights aren’t particularly original, but they are a welcome change. And they also come with a pair of new shoes.

I didn’t come across any bugs during my test, but the performance was a bit of a problem. Visually, Anger Foot isn’t a particularly demanding game. And yet, my frame rate regularly fluctuated between 100 and 30 FPS. This is disastrous for a game that requires fast reflexes. I played with maximum details; however, with an RTX 4090 this shouldn’t be an issue. Let’s hope this will be patched before the launch.

Anger Foot is available for PC. A copy was provided to me by Devolver.