Kate: Collateral Damage

If you had only 24 hours to live, would you spend it getting revenge? Kate: Collateral damage is all about this concept. A trained assassin, Kate has been poisoned with Polonium 204 by a Yakuza boss, which will kill her in precisely 24 hours. She has no reason to hold back anymore—it’s time to get revenge.

This game is based off of a Netflix original series about Kate. Netflix has expressed an interest in getting into the gaming world more and sees adding video games related to their movies as a way to add value to their current lines. Kate: Collateral Damage is the latest effort on this front, releasing very recently on October 22nd. This is what you can expect from the game.

Kill more people to buy time

As you are playing the game, a time bar is steadily draining itself. Killing others in the game is the only way to add more time to the bar. The story is set in Tokyo, and you’ll find yourself running all over it to get revenge before the clock runs down.

You can also buy more time through syringes you find lying around, and make use of the support character that follows you—your hostage, Ani.

Pixelized ¾ View

The game is played in a ¾ view, with the camera following your character around Tokyo as she performs one assassination after the other. The art style is pixelized, with very simple blood splatter to show when you’ve killed someone. The art and bloody feel of the game strongly takes after Hotline Miami, another game where you must kill as many people as possible in a short time period.

Avoid getting shot

It’s pretty easy to kill mobsters and other targets in the game. Kate can usually kill a person with one, at most two, shots. Unfortunately, the same goes for her. It’s important to avoid being injured in the game because you can also be killed with one or two shots yourself.

While Ani can help with buffs throughout the fights, its best to avoid getting hit as much as possible during combat. To help you, there are plenty of weapons available for you to switch out to. The player needs to be able to react swiftly to new and different situations in order to succeed. This might mean running from machine guns, dodging attacks, or swapping to new and creative weapons in order to defeat the Yakuza.

Ludic Studios has made an effort to make this twin-stick style game an active and entertaining shooter. The graphics have a nostalgic feel to them, and the ¾ view makes it fairly easy to see what needs to be done in order to succeed.

Pros:

• Challenging time-based attack game
• Interesting storyline

Cons:

• Unknown