Freaking Meatbags Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: Freaking Meatbags
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Freaking Meatbags review on PC

Tower defense titles with varied premises are quite popular nowadays, but very few actually try to innovate in different ways.

Fortunately for fans of such experiences, Freaking Meatbags from independent studio Wild Factor takes the tower defense recipe and adds quite a lot of various innovative features, not to mention a healthy dose of outlandishness in terms of writing.

As you control a bureaucratic robot tasked with colonizing planets using fleshy creatures, you need to withstand waves of feral bots and other challenges.

Does Freaking Meatbags manage to paint a pretty picture or should the robotic overlords be overthrown? Let's find out.

Story

Freaking Meatbags has a delightful story focusing on a lowly cleaning robot that's just a small cog in a huge bureaucratic machine, run by machines, designed to harvest resources from planets that are scheduled for destruction.

As such, you head from planet to planet and get the local creatures, normally humans or mutants, to help harvest resources while fighting against feral robots.

The premise is simple but the dialog elevates the whole plot to new heights, as it's witty, sometimes dry, and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious. Even a janitorial robot has feelings, and his reactions, as well as those of the other main characters and even of the freaking meatbags, are also quite fun.

Strategy and tower defense in Freaking Meatbags
Strategy and tower defense in Freaking Meatbags

Gameplay

In terms of gameplay, Freaking Meatbags features two distinct aspects, in the form of the tower defense and the real-time strategy mechanics.

First up, as a tower defense game, the title is pretty fun, as you can build special towers that automatically fire against your opponents, mostly the feral robots. In order to improve the efficiency of your buildings, you can task some of your meatbags to go inside. Depending on their own particular stats, the potency of a tower can drastically increase, often making the difference between victory and failure.

Towers are quite varied, but so are the different robots you encounter. Some are simple and easy to vanquish, but they grow in complexity and power, especially when it comes to boss machines. Besides building machine guns, you can create rocket or laser towers, as well as actual metal fences that are able to withstand a fair bit of punishment before giving in.

However, to build all your buildings, as well as acquire upgrades, you have to really engage in the real-time strategy aspect of the game. This involves tasking your meatbags with collecting different resources from the level. These efforts don't stop when wild robots attack, so make sure that you can micro-manage the creatures who need to gather resources and those that should enter robots.

You can upgrade your towers as well as your skills in-between stages by visiting the special store ship. A wide array of imaginative additions are possible, including hoverboards or jetpacks for your meatbags, to enhance their speed, as well as brain slugs that reduce their desire to waste time and relax during mining.

Another great aspect of Freaking Meatbags is the fact that you can fuse the DNA between your different fleshy creatures. Combine humans with aliens and other hybrids and you can obtain all sorts of interesting combinations, both in terms of passive bonuses and active ones, like laser eyes and other such things.

At the end of each stage you can choose which meatbags get to board your ship and continue to help your gathering efforts. Careful planning is needed during these moments, as some hybrids might prove useful, although they sometimes lead to you dumping already upgraded meatbags.

Besides gathering resources and using your towers to defend your efforts, there are also missions where you control just the main robot. You wander around different planets, fighting groups of feral robots, while unlocking temporary add-ons that act as portable towers, so to say, and help dispatch of many foes.

Levels are designed fairly well, although the fact that your base ship lands in a specific place takes away some of the strategic thinking required when exploring the various planets. The single-bot missions are fairly linear, but they have quite a few hidden nooks and crannies with bonus resources. Difficulty-wise, the title handles relatively well although some veteran tower defense and strategy fans might find things a bit too easy.

Splice DNA in Freaking Meatbags
Splice DNA in Freaking Meatbags

Visuals and Sound

In terms of visuals, Freaking Meatbags uses a pretty good pixelated style. From the main robots, both the protagonist and the enemies, to the squishy humans, the graphics manage to keep them recognizable, even at zoomed out levels.

The soundtrack is also quite good, managing to support the action on the screen. Unfortunately, things get a bit repetitive during the early stages of a level, while you handle the strategy side of the regular gameplay.


The Good

  • Fun blend between real-time strategy and tower defense
  • Hilarious writing
  • Imaginative DNA combinations

The Bad

  • Soundtrack gets a bit tedious
  • Some missions are more fun than others
  • Juggling meatbags takes some time to master

Conclusion

Freaking Meatbags is a fun combination of the tower defense and real-time strategy genres. Throw in the witty dialog, the lovely visuals, and the crazy combinations possible when it comes to DNA splicing between humans and aliens, and you'll be quite entertained with it.
story 8
gameplay 7
concept 9
graphics 8
audio 7
multiplayer 0
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good
 
NEXT REVIEW: VoidExpanse

Freaking Meatbags screenshots (15 Images)

Freaking Meatbags review on PCGet punished in Freaking MeatbagsStart your journey in Freaking MeatbagsContact meatbags in Freaking MeatbagsCommunicate in Freaking Meatbags
+10more