GOTY 2023 NOMINATION - Hi-Fi Rush
Rock goes the rhythm.
By Jonathan Garrett
04/01/24
Hi-Fi Rush was a curveball that no-one saw coming; a shadow dropped Xbox exclusive from the team behind Evil Within, this game had no business being as colourful or instantly entertaining as it turned out to be. Equal parts rhythm action and combotastic brawler, it made quite an impression following its surprise launch earlier this year, and hasn’t been far from our thoughts ever since.
Mastering the rhythm of each new finisher, and navigating the world itself, feel every bit as rewarding as you’d want from a game that goes to great lengths to mechanically differentiate itself. The characters endear themselves almost immediately, the writing is sharp, and the overall presentation is polished to perfection.
Would it have benefitted from a longer advertising tail with extra time for hype to propagate? Apex Legends certainly came out of the gate swinging with its own shadow dropped release, but that kind of slam dunk is never a guarantee. In any case, Hi-Fi Rush is a memorable and thoroughly deserving GOTY nomination, and a series we’d love to see make a return.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
