Press X to Die is a game entirely in FMV and seen through the eyes of our nameless protagonist. We awake one day to the sound of our friend panicking and saying something about M Night Shyamalan before meeting an unfortunate end for not pressing X himself. You see, the title implements Quick Time Events to keep the player on their toes and there are four difficulties to suit your button pushing skills. It ranges from Easy to Ridiculous and the more difficult you set it, the less time you’ll have to react as well as needed to press more complex button combos. Some events won’t kill you if failed though others such as taking a hockey stick to the crotch most certainly will.
Half the fun of this title is to see how things play out if you screw up and there are 29 unique ways to get yourself killed. Our character is nameless, but he is not a silent individual. He will constantly be remarking on everything that goes on and man, do things go on in this game. The plot is that everyone in town is suddenly attacking each other with only a few seemingly unaffected people, one including your girlfriend who we must rescue. We will be given multiple choices to make throughout the game such as how to reach your girlfriend’s house. You could either help a biker being assaulted out, run away or steal his bike yourself. Your decisions will slightly alter the ending.
It will last you around 30 minutes overall so I won’t talk about the story much other than saying that it will have you grinning from beginning till end. This title is very cheesy with zero intentions of ever taking itself seriously. Oddest of all is the score and leaderboard systems that they included. Every time we do something correctly we gain points while messing up loses us some. This adds quite a bit of replay value and motivates one to actually try the other difficulty settings on offer. Makes the sting of missing an input and getting smacked across the face with a chemistry book all the more heartbreaking. Won’t make it any less funny though.
Other content includes some behind the scene pictures and a bloopers reel which are nice additions. There is a filter for the footage called 1994 Mode to make the game look very pixelated. It’s an interesting feature to those of us with nostalgia for playing old FMV games on your computer or Sega CD. The effect was a bit too heavy with the blurring to be something I’d use for a full playthrough though the option is there and far be it from me to complain about more options. Press X To Die packs a decent amount of content for its low price of just under three dollars and while you will finish it in half an hour, it is nearly impossible to not want to replay it immediately. If you are still on the fence, the game does have a demo on the Steam store page which is something I always applaud. Press X To Die is a title I would not hesitate to suggest to anyone with love for FMV or simply looking for a good laugh.
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