Otxo

Otxo (2023) (pronounced oh-cho) is a violent shooting game where battle your way through a mansion in search of your lost love. Play is brutal, fast and tactical as you plough your way through each room managing your foes by getting your shots off first. It stands out from similar games like Hotline Miami, not only matching the free-flowing extreme violence but by flipping the hunter and the hunted - here it's you that is the monster rather than your enemies.

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Waking without a memory of how you came here, you only know you must find and save your partner. From a top-down view, you venture into the Mansion to discover its secrets, managing line-of-sight to shoot enemies before they shoot you. It requires fast reactions, pin-point aiming and a good helping of belligerence when you fail (and you will fail a lot).

As you progress you are joined by new allies and ever more menacing enemies. It's frantic and blood-pumping, but things really take off as you expand your arsenal with the huge variety of guns and many abilities. The icing on the cake is the ability to Focus and slow time to allow you to dodge bullets and use locked doors to control who and when you kill next. You're soon an abominable threat to anyone you meet.

The result is a game that's different each time you play it. It creates this variety from hand-crafted areas that combine to create endless combinations. What really stands out is how unrelenting and efficient your character is and doling out death, destruction and dismemberment.

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Our examiner, Jo Robertson, first checked Otxo a year ago. It was re-examined by Andy Robertson and updated a year ago.