REVIEW #117
HITLER: BDSM BUNKER
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I admittedly struggled a little when attempting to start writing this review, as HITLER: BDSM BUNKER is a difficult game to categorize as one, simple thing. It's an "adults-only" game, but it plays like your average, third-person zombie shooter. It's broken in many ways, but the fact that it's broken makes it an even funnier experience than what was probably intended. There's parts of its presentation that feel really unpolished and rough around the edges, but there's other aspects that clearly had a lot of effort and work put into them.

First, let me synopsize H:BB briefly. You play as Adolf Hitler who, according to the game's story, didn't actually die but instead hid in a secret bunker with Christoph, his "boy toy", until World War II was over. Christoph then left the bunker to explore and see the aftermath of battle, but he never came back. The game then tasks you, as Hitler, to find clues that will lead you to Christoph's whereabouts.

Gameplay centers around killing zombies, reaching checkpoints, and finding items in 3 different locales. There are some secrets scattered around the levels, but once you complete the main objectives in a given stage, you can freely move on to the next area. If you are going the completionist route (like I did), then there's a handy percentage counter on the level select menu that shows how much of each level you've completed, secrets and all. Finding notes and objective-centric items unlocks ♥♥♥♥♥♥ CGI images of Hitler, while completing levels unlocks short ♥♥♥♥♥♥ animations of Adolf and Christoph. All of these unlockables are revealed once found and can be accessed again from the main menu.

Visual presentation varies widely in terms of quality. Quest markers will occasionally indicate zombies that you have to kill in order to progress, but those same markers can obscure the enemy's head, making headshots unnecessarily harder to execute. The pre-rendered images and videos of Hitler and Christop are decently produced, but the model of Hitler used during gameplay is a bit ugly. The zombies have good-quality models, but some of the animations are laughably bad. Plus, when zombies are shot, walking zombie animations as well as the ragdoll physics for zombie death will occasionally break, resulting in "skating" injured zombies and models that T-pose or glitch out when a zombie dies. Hitler's animations aren't much better: his head violently twitches during the opening cinematic of every level like he has a bad tic, and he has an awkward and unnatural way of walking that occasionally suggests the rectal transport of steel rods. If there's one thing about the visuals that I can confidently say is really good, it would be the environments (although moving water is strangely a solid surface to walk on.) However, one troublesome bug is that backing Hitler into a corner will occasionally cause much of the game world to visibly vanish until you leave that corner. Additionally, I also had one instance where a ♥♥♥♥ image of Hitler was covering a majority of my gameplay view and would not go away until I went back to the main menu which undid my progress in that level.

One thing that HITLER: BDSM BUNKER really has going for it is that the gameplay, although a little predictable, is not bad. The game's difficulty is rather easy, but surprise deaths did occasionally catch me off-guard. The game is very short and can be fully completed in around 45-90 minutes, but that at least keeps it from overstaying its welcome. Controlling Hitler and aiming weapons feels pretty good, but there's almost no visual damage feedback if you land shots. Additionally, while some of the weapons are rather fun to wield, switching between weapons and reloading seems to work only two-thirds of the time. Sounds are okay (although damage feedback sounds for at least one enemy type will stack on top of itself), and the music is pretty good, but the volume between BGM tracks is really off, resulting in ambiances that are way too quiet and combat music that is overwhelmingly loud. However, I have to give it to the developer, as I can happily report that the game has never crashed on me.

Ultimately, I've wrestled with the idea of calling HITLER: BDSM BUNKER an adults-only title that's "so bad that it's good". That might be an accurate descriptor at the end of the day, as the game is full of issues that (thankfully) do add to its comedic tone and sometimes even become part of its charm. Either way, it's a silly zombie shooter that doesn't take itself too seriously and has admittedly been fun to try out and play. As long as players keep in mind that it's very brief in duration, I can safely say you'll probably have a good time with this title.

Hitler's not a bottom, false advertisement .