THE EXECUTIONERS
Original Release: Bloodlust, 1992, PC
A goofy and gory beat-em-up and the first commercial title from Bloodlust Software
The Executioners (PC, Bloodlust, 1992)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: MS-DOS Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Bloodlust was best known for Nesticle and Genecyst in the mid-late 1990s, the first really good NES and Genesis emulators respectively. But they also released a number of indie games over the course of the decade, I'm fairly certain Executioners was the first of them.
The style recalls the over-the-top gore of Time Killers, an interesting coincidence since that came out the same year (and in November, so likely after this). But this has much more of an absurd Troma-esque sense of humor to it. The setup is that a mad scientist has distributed a mutating compound in food products (love that Joker!) that is now turning all sorts of random people into weird rage monsters, fortunately the government has La Parka and The Lucha Samurai on retainer to clean up these sorts of incidents.
It's definitely on the clunky, ugly and amateurish side of town, but once you get past that it's ... actually not awful? Like, I don't think I'd go so far as to call it a "good beat-em-up" but it's actually not far off, has some fun things to appreciate, and I'd say it's better to play than a number of commercial products from major publishers I could name offhand.
It is quite hard though, in no small part because of the rough engine and general clunk. It's definitely more realistic than most beat-em-ups in that when you get surrounded by three dudes, you're likely getting hit in the back and beat up. The enemies also have good ability to interrupt your attacks and get priority over them. Even with six lives and a fair amount of health refill items about you really have to learn the little hinks of the engine to make it more than a couple levels in. The Lucha Samurai has a much better jump kick that can be abused to slowly whittle down most of the game's enemies, but La Parka is better suited to the other good trick which is to simply approach them from above or below a little and try to quickly grab them (which auto-executes when you get close enough), he does much more damage with his grab-and-pummel combo. They do sometimes get to grab you first, but the trick works much more often than not.
Fun stuff to enjoy includes the little comedy background details, liberal use of voice clips to spice the game up, and some sort of absurd Troma-style animation in between each level. In some ways the game is amateurish, but in other ways it's very impressive for a couple of high school kids with no budget in 1992 on their first real project.
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