State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem

State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem is a charming little top-down shooter that punches above its weight for the price — the hand-drawn doodle art and hilariously improvised voice sound effects give it a personality most budget games lack. The bullet-hell gameplay is genuinely fun early on, and grinding for upgrades between levels keeps you engaged for a good while. That said, honesty demands noting that once you've cleared a handful of stages, you've essentially seen the game's full bag of tricks — there are only a handful of map templates and the enemy variety is thin, so the back half starts to drag. If you can snag it on sale for under a dollar, it's a solid time-killer for an afternoon and worth having in the library for those 'just five more minutes' sessions.

**Recommended** I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did. It’s a pretty simple top-down shooter, but the hand-drawn art style, ridiculous sound effects and chaotic gameplay give it a lot of personality. It feels like one of those old-school browser games, except there’s actually a decent amount of progression here. You run around, shoot enemies, dodge a ridiculous amount of bullets, collect money and upgrade your character and weapons. There are also vehicles and some completely crazy alien sections later on, which help break things up a little. The biggest problem is definitely the repetition. After playing for a while, you start noticing that the same types of levels and encounters come back quite often. The grind can also become a bit tedious if you're trying to unlock everything. Still, I had a good time with it. It doesn't take itself seriously, and that's probably its biggest strength. The goofy presentation, catchy music and constant chaos make it an easy game to pick up when you just want to shoot stuff and switch your brain off for a while. For the price, I’d say it’s worth giving a shot, especially if you like simple arcade shooters and don't mind a bi…

Gives off those old browser games vibes and quite fun too cute game :)

Gives off those old browser games vibes and quite fun too cute game :)

Unsurprisingly good keep going faaaak

"State of Anarchy" is a contradiction in terms.