Terrifier: The ARTcade Game review: Simple, face-crunching fun 

If you like punching clowns and throwing people, you’re in for a treat. Terrifier: The ARTcade Game has emerged from the darkness, offering simple, bloody fun for fans of Art the Clown’s mass-murdering movie antics.

Here, you’ll find The Escapist’s full review of Terrifier: The ARTcade Game, looking at everything from the retro art style to the combat system. Fair warning, it’s a gore-heavy game, so there’ll be a fair amount of pixelated blood in the images below. This review was completed on a PC. 

The Escapist recaps

• It’s an old-school beat-em-up, themed around the Terrifier movies. As you might expect, it’s spectacularly gory, almost to a silly degree, with moves that can slice people’s faces open or send them careening backwards into bear traps. 
• Mechanically, it’s simple yet effective. It’s what you’d expect from a side-scrolling arcade fighter – keep moving, dodging attacks and defeating enemies, then tackle the big boss at the end of the level – but it’ll go down well with fans of the genre.
• In terms of visuals and performance, Terrifier: The ARTcade Game looked good and ran smoothly, without any issues or glitches during the review sessions.
• While fans of more complex horror games may not find much to rip through here, arcade lovers and die-hard Terrifier nerds will get a kick out of this game. It’s simple yet engaging, with plenty of content and modes to choose from. 

A blood-splattered carnival

Terrifier: The ARTcade Game starts with a stylish cutscene, setting up the viscera-soaked levels on the horizon nicely. The game takes you through multiple movie sets, letting you hop between iconic Terrifier villains – including the main man himself – and terrorize anyone that comes your way.

The gameplay loop is standard arcade fare, with linear levels, hordes of enemies, and boss battles at the end of key segments. Each character plays differently, with Art having some particularly gruesome finishers and abilities. 

It’s not the most complex game out there, but that’s not to say it’s bad by any means. It does exactly what it says on the tin, providing a slew of increasingly trickier levels and testing your ability to dodge, dash, and deal with hordes of enemies.

Something great about Terrifier: The ARTcade Game was the variety of enemies on offer. As you progress through the levels, you’ll come across new and unique mobs, each with unique weapons or attack styles.

Some might simply kick or punch, while others will have ground-pound attacks or sticks of dynamite at their disposal. The boss fights helped to add even more variety to the mix and tacked on an extra level of challenge.

The combat in Terrifier: The ARTcade Game was simple to pick up, but allowed for decently complex moves in places. It’s the kind of game that rewards you for spending more time with it and learning how a character performs.

For arcade lovers and Terrifier fans

While it is possible to play Terrifier: The ARTcade Game with a keyboard, it’s highly encouraged to use a controller.

With other games in the genre, it’s possible to skate past this requirement and make a keyboard work, but this title demands a controller for the best experience. This reviewer started with a keyboard playthrough, but begrudgingly plugged in a controller after the first level; the difference was night and day.

It is theoretically possible to play through with a keyboard and mouse if you’re so inclined, of course, but you won’t experience the game at its best. 

Visually, Terrifier: The ARTcade Game looks spectacular. The character models oozed personality and brains, the set design was interesting, and each finishing move felt both gory and ridiculous in equal measure.

In terms of performance, Terrifier: The ARTcade Game didn’t throw up any major issues. It ran smoothly and looked good, with no glitches, frame drops, or crashes to report. 

Terrifier: The ARTcade Game is, at its core, a simple yet effective arcade beat-em-up. It’s not the most complex in its delivery, but arguably, it didn’t need to be. The game offers a wealth of gore and viscera for horror movie fans to indulge in, and it features a neat combat system to complement the retro aesthetic.

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