Bare Butt Boxing Review (PC) – Nothing But Ass
I was never a true specialist at Fall Guys when it rocketed onto PS Plus a couple of years ago. I landed myself a handful of victory royales and had a jolly old time, for the couple dozen hours I spent bouncing around with my buddies. Bare Butt Boxing is another imitator right off the conveyor belt attempting to cash in on the party game trend, akin to Gang Beasts or Party Animals.
To call its premise simple and immature would frankly be an insult to the words. It has “Butt” in the name after all. Yet “Bare” is the only part of its title this game actually lives up to. There’s no slapstick amusement from the butts, no delicious knockout blow from the boxing. Instead, I was left with the disappointing fart cloud that came cascading out after about 10 minutes of playing it.
It’s certainly not the worst party game ever conceived. But I’d struggle to even suggest it as a break from the already stellar entries in the genre.
Letting It All Bare Out
Bare Butt Boxing is as minimalist as it gets when it comes to what it’ll offer you. You’re a little avatar, you punch other little avatars into glowing portals. Hit others in, you get points. Get hit into it yourself, or fall off the map, you lose points. You have a dodge and a stronger wind-up attack, as well as a couple of pick-up items you can launch at opponents.
That… pretty much covers it. There’s four game modes, including the basic “smack everyone” type. One involves hitting a Rocket League ball into the portal instead. Another has one character with supped-up gloves, the only one can score points, which rotates to whoever knocks them into oblivion. There is a fourth called Cycle, which I honestly don’t know what’s different to the basic mode.
If it sounds like I’m struggling to describe it with much enthusiasm, that’s because I am. The core gameplay – if you can call it that – is serviceable enough, but the modes are just straight up the same. Whether you’re hitting a ball or an opponent, what’s the difference? You use two buttons, in every round, in every mode.
Literally after about three rounds (about three minutes each), I’d grown uninterested. It’s like unwrapping a present that has the jazziest, funkiest wrapping paper, only to discover it’s a dictionary as the gift. Punching is floaty and the ragdoll physics, while amusing for a round, are all over the place. I know it’s meant to inspire that “crazy carnage” kind of vibe, but it’s more whoopie cushion than bouncy castle.
Butt Of The Joke
During my time with the review version of the game, I was unable to find a single other real-world person to play against. I also wasn’t subjecting any of my nearest and dearest to suffer the “hilarity” of buttocks-blessed avatars bouncing their behinds around a map. Whether it would be more fun against real people, I couldn’t really tell you. I don’t think others can make up for such limited, basic design, in all honesty.
Sure, there’s a laugh or twos worth of potential amusement, but I couldn’t foresee playing this for any length of time with actual people. It’s with almost complete certainty I can guess that “why don’t we just play Fall Guys” will be uttered within about 15 minutes of playing it. While Bare Butt Boxing isn’t broken or bad, it’s just got nothing to truly differentiate itself from any other party game.
There’s solo, local co-op and online modes all available, which is actually great. Local co-op especially is a dying breed, so it’s nice to see it going strong and represented here. Whether you’ll ever find anyone other than the bots to play is another question entirely. I’ve seen remote galactic planets with more life than these servers. At least there are bots to fill the lobbies, they’ll certainly be needed.
Bare Butt Boxing does also have different cosmetics for your avatar, boxing gloves and title card. They’re super expensive and the currency gain rate is slower than me running a 100 meter sprint at my school sports day (rather a long time ago now), so I can’t say that was particularly riveting either. Either the prices need to be dropped, or the gain rate increased (12 coins for winning is shamefully low).
A Boxing Lightweight
It may have read that I really disliked Bare Butt Boxing, but truthfully that isn’t the case. It’s a colourful, if uninspired little party game that tries to bare its butt for immature effect and only succeeds in landing flat on its cheeks. It’s fun for all of five minutes, and even getting to an hour playtime felt like a slog. Perhaps it will be more entertaining if it can find an audience, but I really can’t foresee it keeping people on board for long enough.
Is it superfluous in the grand scheme of the abundance of party games available? Most likely. Is it harmful or begrudging? Absolutely not. Though, for £11.39 it’s a very tough sell indeed. It’d be like charging £1,000 for a pay-per-view ticket of a local amateur boxer. Even so, if you see the trailer and split the cost with a couple of buddies to punch each other with your keesters on show, why not.
If you have Fall Guys, Gang Beasts, Party Animals or any other variant of the genre, Bare Butt Boxing is barely worth registering on your radar, unfortunately.
There are butts, there is a minimal amount of boxing and there’s an abundance of bare scarcity to Bare Butt Boxing. What it attempts in slapstick presentation and cartoon fun, it slips straight onto its butt with, thanks to barely passable gameplay, stifling cosmetic progression and a lack of anything to help it standout. Bare Butt Boxing might bare all, but perhaps it should cover back up.
Bare Butt Boxing is available August 1st on PC via Steam (review platform).
Developer: Tuatara Games
Publisher: Tuatara Games
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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