Party Hard Review – PC/Steam

The concept behind Party Hard is a very simple one. You play a disgruntled neighbor who is sick of being woken up at 3am by the party next door. Instead of calling the police, you decide to take matters into your own hands. Your goal on each level is to kill every one of the party goers without getting caught.

At first, I was playing the game much too cautiously. I was expecting more realism. I was afraid that a discovered body would mean that the party would break up and I would fail in my mission of killing everyone. But no. The party-goers in this game are either so stupid or so drunk that they don’t care about dead bodies rotting and bleeding all over the house they’re partying in, the show will go on. Even if the cops come and body-bag the deceased, the party rages on amidst all the insanity. Whatever, I can get behind that for the sake of a good slasher game. I’ll suspend my disbelief for a moment.

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The game allows you to use your knife to silently and quickly kill anyone you’re standing near. Wait until someone goes into a room by themselves, or passes out somewhere convenient. Then, you kill them and dispose of their body, or don’t, since people finding bodies doesn’t really have any effect, only if they see you in the committing the murder do things get tricky. I’m assuming that there’s probably an achievement that you can get for killing everyone without the police showing up, but it’s definitely not game over if they do.

You can also use any of the many random traps that are available throughout the levels to help you in your mission to kill every last one of the people at the party. Other tools like poison, stun bombs, changes of clothing, etc. will help you as well.  Ironically, even the cops or fire department might take out a few party-goers mingling near the front door when they rollup to investigate.

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The game is a gratuitous, pixel-art, gore-fest that was slightly reminiscent of Hotline: Miami, except that the music in this game did little more than give me a headache. I quickly lowered the music volume down to almost as low as it would go just to be able to hear myself think while I played.

The game is not exactly what I anticipated. I thought it would rely a lot more on stealth, but basically as long as you find someone in a room by themselves and kill them, you’re off scot-free. Interestingly, I found that the more people were still left at the party, the easier it was. it truly got difficult once you got down to the last few remaining people because then you really had to choose your methods of killing a little more carefully and plan your route. One false step means having to start all the way over at the beginning of the level. But even if someone witnesses you and the cops come to get you, you’re still given an opportunity to escape. Seems the cops in the game are a little lazy and if you just give them the slip for long enough, they’ll tire of trying to catch a serial killer and just go on about their regular duties. Must not be any paperwork at this police department.

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I was actually surprised at how many levels there were with the game. I believe there are eight in total, and I assume that they get more difficult as they go. If that is the case, I’ll be surprised if I am ever able to finish the game. I played through the first one about a half a dozen times before I was able to actually kill everyone successfully. Even then, I didn’t get sick of the level. I liked that the levels are designed to be “semi-procedural” so that even though the layout is basically the same, there are slight differences as far as what traps are available and what is in each room.

Each party-goer also has their own agenda. Some are there to hook up, some are there to get blind drunk and go pass out in a bathroom for a while. You just have to keep your eyes open and make sure to be in the right places at the right times in order to pick them off as the opportunities present themselves, and you can’t just learn a pattern that works every time you do the level. Each time it’ll be a little bit different.

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Overall, if you’re in the mood for a simple, yet fun slasher-fest where you get to just indiscriminately kill a bunch of people, then you’ve found a good game. The game is currently on sale for less than $10, which seems like a reasonable price for what you get out of it. After the sale, the regular price is going to be $12.89.

You can check out my initial play-through video here.

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Author: Brice Boembeke
My first memories of gaming are from when I was 5 years old and my dad got a Commodore 64. It has been almost 30 years and my passion for gaming has only grown. I play a little bit of everything, but am particularly interested in the emergent and unscripted gameplay that comes from open world, sandbox-style online multiplayer games. It is a very exciting time to be a gamer, but I still feel like the best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

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