Terror of Hemasaurus
Review

Terror of Hemasaurus (2022) is a retro fighting game where you smash up a destructible city as a giant monster. Play is like the classic Rampage arcade game, here though you can use the game's physics to inflict greater damage, chain reactions and combos. It's like stepping into a pixelated B-Movie and stands out for its frantic bombastic four-player fun.

You wreak havoc on humanity as one of four huge monsters. Punch buildings, slap helicopters, eat humans, kick cars or do all at the same time. It ups the satisfaction by combining arcade action, mindless destruction and real physics that even lets you topple buildings if you hit them with enough force in the right spot.

As you progress you uncover a story about humanity's destruction of the planet. Earth is on the brink of a climate catastrophe. The answer here is not protesting or recycling. The Church of the Holy Lizard hatches a plan to "save" us from our own recklessness by unleashing a monster to kill, destroy, and inflict terror.

The result is a game about rampaging devastation in its many locations. There's a real delight in the imaginative destruction as you stomp terrified citizens and pulverise buildings in its apocalyptic, retro arcade blast of farcical fun. But running through this is also a tongue-in-cheek critique of how the media and consumerism want things to continue as normal rather than respond to environmental (and monstrous) threats to life.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Terror of Hemasaurus a year ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 5 months ago.