“When aliens who look like clowns come to a small town and start killing people, a group of youngsters band together to fight them and save everyone”. If that doesn’t sound like the recipe for a game, I don’t know what does. Thankfully the teams at IllFonic and Teravision have grabbed another cult horror movie and turned it into a 3v7 multiplayer game based on the 80’s horror movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
You take control of either a human trying to escape being harvested for your goo, or a Killer Klown hell bent on brining on Klownmageddon.
Sending in the Klowns.
Let’s start with the Klowns. Your Klown is fully customisable. Being able to change your face paint, costumes, and weapons all unlockable by playing the game. There are 5 different classes of Klowns with different stats and abilities like being able to create a balloon bloodhound to help track down your prey, setting traps or using a hypnotic gaze to lull your target into submission. There are also a bunch of crazy Klown themed weapons like Cotton Candy Ray Guns and Mallets. I even unlocked a popcorn Bazooka, which shoots out crackling popcorn. So, if you manage to hit your target and you lose sight of them you will be able to track the sound for a short while.
As a Klown there are 2 ways to win, total annihilation of the humans or bringing on the Klownpocalypse. Each match has a 15-minute countdown timer, if it hits zero a detonation will occur killing all the humans on the map. There are also cotton candy cocoons scattered across the map, and if you can locate the 16 cocoons and bring them back to the 4 generators (4 cocoons per generator) located around the map you will summon the Klownpocalypse early. As you return cocoons to the generators you will spawn lackeys that can help lock down an area with audio cues if survivors are spotted in said area. There is even a weapon that can turn survivors into cocoons, so you don’t need to find as many.
Escape or die.
The humans on the other hand don’t have as much to choose from. You can outfit your escapee in some amazing 80 inspired costumes as well as choose between 5 different archetypes that have slightly different stats.
You start the Match with nothing. You must scrounge through cupboards and boxes for weapons (yes the Klowns can be killed, sort of), food and the necessary pieces required for you to activate an exit. To win you must escape. To do so you must locate different items around the map, find the relevant exit and play some very frustrating mini games to unlock the exit. All while the Klowns are stalking the level trying to eliminate you.
Sound plays a big role in Killer Klowns. The Klowns have incredible hearing and can hear the humans running and rifling through containers from quite far away. If you fail a mini game as a human just know that one of the Klowns herd it and are on their way.
I did find the Klowns to be a little too powerful. Sure, they are slower and there is only 3 of them, but having unlimited ammo, being able to teleport and even respawn after death made the job for the humans feel utterly hopeless. I escaped a handful of times but found myself wrapped in a cocoon for most of the match became not very fun.
I didn’t have any major performance issues With Killer Klowns, but there were a few little bugs with the mini games failing even though I know I nailed it. The button layout and control of either the clumsy Klowns or the nimble humans felt great, and I never had any trouble finding games.
Killer Klowns is a lot of fun, even though it’s a game about Killer Klowns, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Anyone who loves Friday the 13th or Dead by Daylight will feel right at home. It defiantly needs some weapon balancing but overall, I am loving the dive down memory lane.
I would like to thank IllFonic and Teravision for the review code.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X and is available from the 4th of June on PlayStation 5, Pc and Xbox Series X and S.
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