Coo And The Gang
Grab your boombox, put on your 80’s style big wig and get ready to rock out with the pigeons??
Pigeons do often look like they’re bopping to their own beat, but it took Glee-Cheese Studio and iconic publishers Team 17 to bring us the pigeon-based rhythm action battle royale glory of Headbanger Rhythm Royale.
What Is Headbangers Rhythm Royale?
As you may guess from the title, Headbangers is a rhythm-based battle royale where you must duke it out against 29 other pigeons in a series of timing-based mini-games. Using the action buttons or analog sticks you must follow the onscreen instructions and either score highest or outlast other players to progress to the next level.
How Does Headbangers Play?
Games can consist of simply repeating the onscreen pattern or hitting buttons to the beat. For example, Fitness sees you and your competitors following a pigeon coach moving their head up down left and right with you repeating the pattern, whereas in Super Striker your pigeon is up on a pole like a Table Football player and you must strike the ball in time to the beat, with parts of the screen often obscured by sports adverts to up the difficulty for those able to get far enough.
There are a total of 23 mini-games available in Hheadbangers at the time of writing with more expected to arrive in future seasons.
What Do We Like About Headbangers?
Headbangers is a great game to pick up and jump into whether you have just 10 minutes or an hour to spare, each round is quite short and getting to the final round will really test your skills as there are some players out there with superhuman levels rhythm.
Another great feature of the game is the customisation of your pigeon, with outfits, hair and makeup all available to change as well as adding silly glasses. My pigeon is very much inspired by Kiss because why not, more customisation pieces can be unlocked as you win games and level up. There is even a challenges tab on the main menu which shows full outfits that can be unlocked by completing certain challenges allowing you to dress your pigeon up as a luchador wrestler, superman or even a fairytale castle if you so wish.
Clearly Headbangers’s greatest feature though is the pigeons themselves, not only do they have a design reminiscent of the evil penguin from Wallace & Gromit’s short The Wrong Trousers (distant relatives perhaps?) but whenever you move the analog stick to headbang your pigeon makes a behhhhhhh sound (honestly not sure how else to translate it into words) which depending on the individual may be incredibly hilarious or absolutely annoying. It’s not quite on the same level as the Honk button from Untitled Goose Game but its pretty close.
What’s Not So Good?
Headbangers delivers some laughs and some challenges for sure, but there really isn’t a lot else here for the £19.99 asking price. Yes there will be more content coming as each season rolls in but unless you really want to keep customising your pigeon you may find yourself only dipping in infrequently to see what new game modes are available.
What’s Coming Up For Headbangers?
Season 3 of Headbangers is due to launch on April 4th which will feature a brand new game mode called Battle Of the Dancers where players will take on another pigeon in a one-on-one rhythm battle that gives off some serious DDR vibes.
Overall Opinion
Headbangers is a fun game in small doses but it often feels repetitive with its game modes, many playing similarly to others with a different lick of paint on top. The game is online only so you may need your platform’s online subscription to be able to play which makes us feel as if it may have been better received as a free game via PS Plus or the like.
If you enjoyed this review why not check out another Spawning Point review by Team 17, Dredge
