Larva Mortus

By: Derek Yu

On: May 15th, 2008

Larva Mortus is a new top-down action game from Rake in Grass, the creators of the well-loved indie shmup Jets n’ Guns. In the game you play an agent in an occult crime-fighting organization of sorts… in other words, you’re going to be slicing, shooting, and blowing up every manner of foul Goosebumps reject in your efforts to protect humanity from the supernatural.

The fighting takes place across various missions that you select from a map. Some are “key” to the storyline and and some aren’t. The structure of each type is the same, however – make your way through a series of randomly generated rooms until you achieve your goal, whether its clearing the area of monsters, destroying profane altars, rescuing civilians, or what have you.

Larva Mortus is fun, and it looks good, but it doesn’t quite live up to Crimsonland or Smash TV, which are the two games it most reminded me of (and both classics of the genre). The action isn’t quite frantic enough, the RPG elements are a bit too diluted, the maps are too simple… and the game’s never quite sure whether it’s supposed to be scary or campy. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that it’s not as fun as it should be to blow a zombie’s head off with a shotgun!

But try it for yourself if it sounds interesting. The demo caps the amount of experience you can get, which bars you from attempting the later story missions. The full game is $19.95.

(Source: John Walker, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)