Duck Game is definitely one of the most chaotic party games one can experience. You just jump right into round after round of 2D platforming arena combat with various guns, grenades, rocket launchers, chainsaws, microwave guns, and whatever the hell else you can pick up to end your friends. The movement is pretty smooth thanks to quick ground movement combined with a fast hop and sliding and there's tons of potential for dumb moments thanks to how easy it is to get draws from killing each other at the same time or SDing from your own weapon. Rounds are rapid fire and are over so quickly that you won't even have time to rage. And there's a dedicated quack button. Genuinely don't have anything bad to say about Duck Game, it's an easy to pick up and addicting party game that works amazingly well online and even better as couch multiplayer; one of my first recommendations for unhinged and wild multiplayer sessions.

This might just be my favorite party game ever made. It's so hilariously bonkers and bombastic that I have an absolute blast every time I play it with my friends. It's lightning fast and has so much bonkers tech to it that every round feels like such a rush. Seriously, you can do some insane shit here. Setting mines in places to trap your friends, using a gun's kickback to propel yourself to higher areas or even save yourself from certain death, the good ol' grenade snipe from across the map, the list goes on and on. Feeling to lazy to do some slick tricks? How about something goofy instead? I personally feel keen on trying to kill my opponents my stepping on them with shoes every time they come up even though it mostly never works out well for me. I have had some success crushing with boxes or rocks though, as I toss one from a distance and somehow manage to snipe their head with it. It's also hilarious to see my friends go mental over trying to get rid of the mind control ray whenever it comes up. (they almost always fold to it if I get my hands on it lmao) Whatever you find on the stage is up to you to use how you see fit on how to fuck shit up with them.

It's not even that hard to get into as well. The mechanics are all pretty simple to learn and utilize, but tough to master. And boy, mastering these mechanics feels oh so satisfying. The single player arcade challenges can provide good ways to help touch up on how to play, and help you 'git gud' to maybe even reach those ever elusive platinum and dev records. Speaking as someone who's beaten all of the dev records, they are absolutely FUCKED. Some like grenade launcher 101 and swing mace pro bring back particularly nightmarish memories.

My literal only complaint here is some of the other things required for completion. Raising eight little men and reaching level 20 in particular require an extremely annoying amount of grinding. But they aren't really involved much with the actual game at all so it's only really annoying to people like me I guess. It's just overall an absolutely exhilarating and over the top experience. Literal peak party gaming right here.

Also, like many others have said, the game has a dedicated quack button. If that doesn't sell you on this then I don't know what will.

okay so

what if the smash bros roster was all ducks

and matches were 6 seconds long

also grenades and sniper rifles

The only "real" gripe I have with Duck Game's platformer-action mayhem is that it's the kind of game that only works in short bursts. You get three other people together in a room, blaze through several rounds with them, scream at the television as any semblance of competition goes out the window, and then you're done. But this is a gripe insomuch as my inability to fit inside a swing meant for children less than half my height is an issue. Short experiences are not inherently bad experiences. When you're playing an action game on your own, this holds true. But it's damn near gospel if you tag anyone else with you. Here's a bit of a question: who wants to play a game of Monopoly that lasts a month? If you say yes to that inquiry, please consider how many players remain by the time the game wraps up. For the relatively short play sessions you'll have with Duck Game, it's not nearly as shallow as one might expect it to be. There are decent layers of polish here that make this game feel distinct every time you pick it up. Everything from how it controls, the character customization, map variety, and weapons will keep you coming back for some more laughs with a few buddies.

What keeps me from giving this five stars is that the singleplayer offerings are meager practice modes at best. They're pretty cool if you're hoping to get better at the game, but say you didn't have anyone to play this with. Well, there's online functionality. But is playing online as much fun as playing in a room with people that you know? And let's suppose that you don't know anybody to play with in person, and your online connectivity is poor, or you aren't a fan of playing games online. There isn't a compromise for you. You either pick up Duck Game to play with other people, or you don't; end of story.

Lame singleplayer content aside, I genuinely think this is on the higher echelon of local multiplayer games I've played so far in this lifetime. S-Tier all the way, no regrets.

A ludicrously fun core game mode, and a strangely-included progression system.

Duck Game rules, and it's because you have such a wide array of options for player expression. You can slide to break glass panes. You can quack and hold the button to keep your mouth open. You can increase the pitch of your quacks and instruments you play by varying how much pressure you put on the left trigger. You can press a button to ragdoll at any time and feign death, which can trick some opponents into letting their guard down and letting you snatch the win. Gliding in mid-air with a weapon equipped lets you shoot it straight up; firing while in the middle of your glide's turning animation will let you fire straight down. Picking up a weapon and interrupting the animation by firing a shot will let you shoot at downward angles.

These are just the movement techs. This doesn't include the absurd variety of weapons at your disposal, and the fact that every single one of them feels unique. Laser pistols can be charged to fire through steel doors; a duck caught by the net gun who lands on an empty item spawner will be held in place to be grabbed for longer; the revolver or the SMG can be spammed to use their absurd recoil to hit otherwise impossible angled shots; the magnet gun can grab ducks who are wearing plate armor; the book can convert other ducks to join your side, giving you additional points at the end of the round depending on how many of your converts are still alive.

Obviously, a lot of the game's more random elements keep it from being strictly fair ⁠— there's not much you can do on a gift box level when someone pulls an infinite ammo shotgun and you get a flower ⁠— but they're what keep it fresh. Duck Game is only so competitive. Players with a stronger understanding of movement and weapon loadouts will win more often, but a bad player can still get lucky with spawns and drops and steal a win they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. It isn't completely up to skill, but it isn't completely up to luck, either. It mirrors a lot of the best elements of competitive Pokemon, wherein learning to manage your strategy in the face of bad luck becomes a core part of maintaining regular success.

The absolutely massive amount of custom levels and items mean that the game can effectively never become stale, and there's so much available from the mod community that you could never hope to experience all of it. There's a lot of great stuff, too! The best Duck Game level-makers seem to understand the many, many facets of the game at least as well as the original developers do, and there's a ton to dig through and experiment with. You don't need any of these to keep the game feeling fun ⁠— I managed to go about twenty hours before I felt the need to check out the Steam workshop ⁠— but they're a great addition to the basic map rotation.

Despite this excellent core game loop, however, there are some really odd inclusions. I don't know what's going on with the post-game levelling system, or why it takes so long to get through. It's free pizza day on Tuesday? The furniture salesman is here? He brought his son? He wants to buy my desk? What is any of this? Can you get it off of my screen so I can get back to playing the game? I don't care to put tokens into a gachapon machine. I don't care that I got a 1/25 oak table that I can put in my room. I don't care that I unlocked a new arcade machine that I can grind fifty wins out of for a new hat. Just let me play the actually fun normal game mode with my friends. I wish I could just turn this entire progression system off so I'm not forced to pay attention to it every time I'm sent back to the lobby. It's a small issue, but it's enough to really get under my skin. I don't remember this being present in the earliest days of the game when I first started playing. If it was, it was never this in-your-face about it.

Ultimately, though, Duck Game remains one of the most fun multiplayer games I've ever gotten my hands on, and is definitely a standout of the past decade. Nearly ten years since its release, it remains as timeless as it is fun. Those who have played it are going to remember it very, very fondly across the coming years.

One of those games that is easy to pick up but extremely hard to master.

A great example of this are keys: You can simply pick them up and use them on doors, but it takes some time to realise you can also throw them at a door to unlock them and free up your hand to grab a weapon instead. And another example is the sword: It's easy to understand that if you slashing people with it they will die. But then you will see someone throw a sword at you and you learn that throwing them is just as deadly. Then a little bit later you might notice that you can actually hold the sword down to use as a spear and stab in front of you with it. Ingame there are many more great examples of mechanics that have more dept that you

Duck game is a great game for player who are looking for a game with a little bit of depth without that depth existing of min/maxing stats like in an RPG.