This, by far, will be the weirdest review I will ever write in terms of having more negatives about a game than positives, yet somehow, Hot Blood is not only fun but addictive. Developed and published by Eastasiasoft and Deklazon, they have managed to deliver a game that is so bad in its execution, but also hard to put down, so let me try to explain how a “HOT” mess can be so “BLOOD”y good.

Hot Blood has you playing as the sexy and alluring heroine, Roxy, where she and her boyfriend are out shopping when a zombie outbreak suddenly occurs. Determined to survive, Roxy kicks and punches her way through the hordes of zombies to not only escape but to find her missing boyfriend. Cheesy, I know, but hey, Hot Blood clearly isn’t taking itself seriously in the execution of gameplay, so why would it get serious about its story? Let’s sexily strut our way into that topic.

Hot Blood is a three-dimensional, third-person, beat ‘em up, with ridiculous ragdoll physics that will always give you a chuckle. When starting up Hot Blood, you will be greeted with an atypical menu of play, dressing room, settings, and reset progress. The settings are so bare-boned that the zombies have more flesh on them – you will only find volume adjusters, X and Y inverters, and language.

The dressing room is where you can change Roxy’s outfits and hairstyles. There are 12 in total, and each one has five additional changes of colour. With the exception of your starting outfits, these are locked behind level requirements and require you to pay in-game money to unlock them, but earning some cash and raising your level is as easy as killing zombies – the more difficult the zombie the more money and experience you will earn. Outfits are all boob and butt-enhancing, offering a range of miniskirts, bra tops, and sexy animal teddies, all aimed at increasing Roxy’s sex appeal.

Just like the settings, the control scheme was just as simple. As I reviewed Hot Blood on the Nintendo Switch, the controls I’m about to describe are for that platform, but it is also available on Steam, PS4 and PS5.

Left and right sticks move Roxy and the camera, and this is where my negatives start to rain down like the blood from the eviscerated zombies Roxy pummels into re-death. The camera is too close, and while I appreciate the “in your face” booty, I would have much preferred a bit more room to see the environments and enemies.

Movement is slow and sluggish, but it is not alone as the three attacks on the A, B, and Y buttons are the same. While you can hold the LT button to run, it is only a small increase, and you’ll find yourself holding it down almost indefinitely just to feel like normal movement.

RT will have you performing rolls, helping to increase your movement speed, however, its directional accuracy is questionable at times, and its cool-off will have you saving it to escape some terrible hit detection and tracking situations rather than using it as a speed boost.

When I say terrible hit detection and tracking, I am saying Mr Magoo would have a more consistent hit rate than Roxy. Many times, I would find myself spamming the attack buttons, only to watch Roxy twirl sexily around like a world-professional pole dancer, with zombies rubbing up against her like drunken horny perves. When the attacks do eventually connect, the zombie is torn to pieces, but Roxy will continue to attack in the direction of the giblets ignoring everything else in her vicinity.

This means if a horde of zombies are all attacking you at once, you need to stop pressing buttons, wait for Roxy to compose herself, and then you can start pressing attack buttons again in the direction of your next zombie.

The graphics are low poly and colourful, but it doesn’t really matter as it is dark everywhere. The shopping mall where Roxy and her boyfriend fall under attack has a blackout when zombies attack, but it’s ok, Roxy has a torch that will light the area in front of her. Everything else becomes dark silhouettes.

I get the idea of where Hot Blood was attempting to create situations where zombies could sneak up or trick you by pretending to be mannequins, but due to the tightness of the camera, slow movement and attacks, bad hit detection and tracking, I would enter a room swinging wildly like the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Toons, meaning the darkness was more of a disappointment than a method of delivering sneak attacks. I would have liked to have seen the environment through something other than through a torch beam.

My final gripe about Hot Blood was with the constant zombie moans. As soon as you boot up, the zombies start moaning. When you are playing the game, zombies moaning. When you’re in the dressing room, you hear zombies moaning. After you’ve flayed the zombies so much that they may as well be skeletons and there are no more to be seen… Zombies moaning. I thought I would have gotten sick of the rock music that accompanies your gameplay, or Roxy’s one-liners, and maybe I would have if it wasn’t for the cacophony of moans coming from the invisible secret zombie lair covered in peepholes, but zombies moaning…

With all the negatives Hot Blood has, for some ludicrous reason, I could not stop playing it. Like the zombies, I became completely mindless as I joyfully clicked away. Hot Blood is weirdly addictive, and for $10AU, it’s a short gameplay loop you can return to repeatedly. Though it is not a game I will play often, I know it will remain available in my library when I just want to play something that requires little effort.

Written by: Ashley Barnett-Cosgrove