Review: Just Die Already
As the elder statesman of 60MW it was only appropriate that I review ‘Just Die Already’; an open world sandbox game where you take on the guise of one of four old people (2 women characters and 2 men to choose from) before doddering around looking to do as much mischief as possible before dying…a lot.
Created by Armin Ibrisagic (who also brought us the similarly physics based open world playground ‘Goat Simulator’) Just Die Already begins with you trying to escape a retirement home using any means necessary…and usually very violent ones too.
The controls are easy to pick up: L1 & R1 are your 2 hands and pick up things (I’m playing the PS4 version) L2 & R2 throw/use whatever is in that hand, X makes you jump/stand up, Square button taunts people (and can also be used to make you pee after you’ve had a drink…just be careful who or what you pee on!), Circle makes you into a ragdoll flopping around everywhere, and Triangle respawns you to the closest respawn point.
Having escaped the retirement home you are free to do whatever you want, though you do have a ‘Bucket List” (easily accessed by pressing up on the D-Pad) which you can refer to and complete set tasks. The more tasks you complete, the more rewards you can collect from various vending machines scattered around the world to help you on your journey. These can be clothing items, weapons, power-ups and much more.
Graphically it is very colourful and “cartoonish” with a physics based system that is very reminiscent of the aforementioned Goat Simulator. If that game didn’t appeal to you then I doubt there is anything extra here that would make you enjoy this.
However, if you did like Goat Simulator, or have never tried it before and want to dip your toes into something a bit wild and wacky, then Just Die Already could be just the game for you.
Repetition can begin to creep in after a few hours, but then either a new area will open up to be explored, or a new gadget is found hidden away in a secret place that gives you more options to cause even more mayhem…and there is a lot of mayhem to be caused.
Some highlights for me so far include:
- Duel wielding nails guns while wearing a live octopus on my head and spraying deadly nails into anyone that comes close to me
- Standing on a table at a sushi bar and peeing onto the customers (I admit it, my sense of humour is VERY immature!)
- Climbing a tall building, discovering some large fireworks at the top of it, then lighting them while holding on to them and being thrown across the skies of the map until exploding in a colourful display of sparks and blood
- Taking a shortcut across some water only to discover there was a hungry shark in it who has a taste for old people
- Cycling through a burning ring of fire only to land in front of a speeding car that tore me into multiple pieces, leaving me hopping on 1 leg, blood spurting from where my arms used to be, yet still being able to pee onto someone or something if I wanted to
If you like just messing around in a ridiculous Goat Simulator-esque open world where you can dip into your bucket list of things to do should you want, this can easily pass away a lot of your time in a very enjoyable way.
If however you like your games a bit more serious and/or structured, then you could get fed up or frustrated quite quickly.
I’m still ticking off items in my ever expanding bucket list while also just messing around, and I’m still finding things that make me laugh…which is something we should all be doing as much as possible.
Hopefully Just Die Already will be as well supported as Goat Simulator and this is just the beginning of the septuagenarian adventures to be had.
I’m off now to throw some explosives into a karaoke bar and see what happens.
Just Die Already is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch.
Review by Dave from a review code kindly supplied by Curve Digital.
