What is Kill It With Fire?
Quirky objective-based games have started to sprout up, such as Untitled Goose Game, to help scratch an itch for players that are being reminded that its OK to just have fun with a game. Casey Donnellan Games has taken this, pumped it full of steroids, and packed it with a flamethrower. Welcome to the first-person action game that’s all about hunting spiders and causing insane amounts of collateral damage; Kill It With Fire.
This game is all about meeting objectives and unlocking elements of the game that help create the craziest of moments. You’ll go through a level searching for sparkling sheets of paper to provide you with the different objectives that need to be met. As you find these objectives, you’ll also come across new weapons & tools to add to your spider-squashing arsenal, equipment items that can change how you interact with your weapons and the environment, upgrades to your Spider Radar tool, and batteries (because we just can’t seem to ever find them in real life when we need them).
The objectives range from such goals as “Kill 10 Radioactive Spiders” (Yes, radioactive spiders) to “Blow up all the toilets” in a level (which a meal from Taco Bell should be able to assist with this).
While you go around burninating spider villages, finding items, and completing objectives you’ll come across safes, crates, and doors that require you to complete a certain amount of objectives or kill a certain amount of spiders before you can unlock them. These can lead to new weapons, tools, and areas to unleash more mayhem.
Once an area has been cleansed of the spider threat and all items have been found, there’s still one last challenge — The Arachno-Gauntlet challenge. These challenges can range from killing 5 spiders with a six-shooter revolver without reloading within a limited time to killing a specific number of webspitting spiders with shuriken, also within a specific time-limit (did I mention the devs are 100% evil for this?). Though initially these Arachno-Gauntlets seem like bonus fun, they do play a pretty big role toward the end of the game.
The weapons you unlock from each level range from a silenced pistol and double-barrel shotgun to an RPG and C4. The tools range from energy drinks to slow down time to fire extinguishers that slow down spiders. Equipment items vary from elements like cargo shorts, which make more items available to you in your hotbar at the bottom of the screen to a protein shake which allows you to throw items farther. Then you finally have the Spider Radar upgrades such as D-cells for longer battery life to the Arachno-Scope which allows you to see spiders through objects.
While all unlocked weapons and tools are available to you in different missions, the equipment and radar upgrades are based on a point system. You’ll have a certain total number of points that can be taken up by each upgrade or piece of equipment with their own set of points associated with them. This way, if you have a total of ten points available and you’ve selected two pieces of equipment that are 5 points each, you won’t be able to equip any more. This system can keep things a bit more strategic, where you need to plan what elements would work best for the next level you take on.
Just as there are a variety of weapons, items, and upgrades, there are also a variety of spiders to face in each mission.
Here’s a list of what you’ll come across.
Spiderling: A one-hit wonder with the ability to evolve to another spider type with the right bait.
Black Spider: A larger spider that will take an extra hit to kill.
Jumping Spider: An arachnid with an Air-Jordan jump and that always aims for the face.
Explosive Spider: Immune to fire and will explode on death.
Invisible Spider: Blends in with its environment. This is a spider you want your Radar for.
Radioactive Spider: Bright green and mean with the ability to bring back dead spiders.
Webspitter Spider: An annoying spawn of evil that shoots webs on to the screen, hindering your sight.
Queen Spider: Sits on the throne until you squash her. Then watch out for her spiderlings to seek revenge.
Zombie Spider: Can be any of the above spiders that was brought back from the dead by the Radioactive Spider.
Within 10 hours of gameplay, I completed the entire game (finding all the upgrades, weapons, and equipment items) and I was able to unlock all the Steam achievements. With the amount of fun, I had with this game, I can easily say it’s worth every penny for someone to go out to get. Even after getting through the content, I still feel there is replay-ability where I can just jump in to create some digital mayhem whenever I want. Also, something tells me that this isn’t the last we see of our spider smashing hero.
