John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is too much of an OK thing

John Carpenter's Toxic Commando gets the vibe right, and that's often enough to make everything else worthwhile.

From the synth-heavy soundtrack (for which Carpenter provides the theme) to the grimy visuals and endearingly clunky humor, Toxic Commando nails the elements that make the 80s horror master so beloved. When I was most frustrated with the game, I could still cling to the presentation.

This is an always-online multiplayer experience. Solo players should right away look elsewhere. If you're hoping for a fun, easily accessible adventure that gives you the 'me-against-the-world' vibe of Escape from New York, I'm sorry to say this is not it.

Instead, you'd better have three friends (each with their own copy of the game, of course) and a boatload of time to plough through even a single mission. You can, in theory, play with NPC sidekicks, but even that requires an online connection.

During my test period, at the times my colleagues weren't available, or I couldn't find an online session, I made do with solo matches. It wasn't fun. Worse, I still bumped into lag and weird hang-ups if my connection hit a snag. Not something you want to experience in a private session.

There is a story, and like the visuals, it gets Carpenter's vibe of big ideas and ramshackle execution just right. In the near future, a Sludge God awakens due to corporate shenanigans related to a drill site and starts turning everyone around into the undead. It's up to a gang of archetypal misfits to save the day, and they're going to do it guns blazing.

The group comprises four heroes and four classes that emphasize your favorite playstyle. Strike is your regular assault class, Medic speaks for itself, Operator serves as an engineer, and the Defender works like a tank.

Toxic Commando is balanced well enough that even if you don't want to coordinate classes, the experience itself doesn't punish you for it. For all its other frustrations, this is a game that understands the importance of a power fantasy, especially as you wipe the floor with hellspawn.

To accommodate that fantasy, Toxic Commando offers a robust and nicely varied armory. The weapons handle just differently enough to justify the quantity, and there are numerous upgrades on top of the base gear. For those willing to spend a lot of time with this title, Toxic Commando provides ample opportunities to personalize the experience.

But to get there, Toxic Commando takes the long way around. In fact, there isn't a detour that it doesn't love. Unlocking gear is a grind, and often not that much fun. First, you have to gain levels, which is understandable, but then you also have to collect sludge seeds, spare parts, and other valuable loot to purchase the darn stuff!

As a result, leveling up feels just like another step in a task list of chores instead of something worth celebrating. It's such a bummer to return to base in hopes of snagging the new upgrade you've been eyeing, only to realize you're short a couple of hundred bits and need to go back to the hustle.

If the missions were better paced, I'd understand the necessity for an extended grind. But Toxic Commando suffers from one idea too many, which leads to expansive and often way too long levels. This was something I noticed back at Gamescom, where I got a chance to try out the game for the first time. A single mission took nearly an hour to complete, and that applies to the full release as well.

Compare that to the gold standard of this genre, Left 4 Dead, where the missions are tight, intense, and perfectly focused on a constant forward momentum. Even World War Z, another Saber Interactive title, got the idea better than most. It's odd, then, for Toxic Commando to feel so unwieldy.

Which leads to the contradiction that is the gameplay experience. I admire Toxic Commando's insistence on delivering the most bang for the buck. At 40 Euros, there's a hell of a lot of game here, and for fans of the genre, it's well worth the asking price.

But you really have to be a fan, almost to a fault. You have to want to have off-roading in cars, semi-open world maps, horde and boss battles, upgradeable skills, RPG elements, and more. Toxic Commando does all of these pretty well, but it doesn't excel at any in particular.

For example, it's a thrill to race through zombie hordes, find hidden caches of weapons, and struggle against overwhelming odds. It's far less fun to do the same tedious "find gas to power up a doodad that you then have to defend for an X amount of time" that everyone else has already done. As an experience, it goes from 0 to 100 incredibly fast, but also comes to a halt just as suddenly.

Luckily, the Swarm Engine is a beast. At best, it creates incredible and heartpounding sequences that make every complaint feel pointless. When you strap in for a defense against seemingly thousands of monsters, Toxic Commando delivers on the promise of apocalyptic action like no other.

But, and there's almost always a but with this game, the technical side isn't as stable. My rig (I7-9700k, 32GB RAM, RTX 3080) isn't new, but it's certainly not ancient, and it struggled with Toxic Commando. At worst, I had to keep all settings at minimum just to hit 60fps at 1440p, and even that wasn't guaranteed.

My friends, who joined the campaign, reported similar issues. One with an RTX 2070, another with an AMD RX 7600.

Granted, this was an early build, and the experience got better closer to release. It is highly likely that in the weeks and months after release, Toxic Commando will deliver a perfectly decent experience. But that feels like a compromise, one that we shouldn't have to make when the recommended specs aim for an RTX 3060 TI.

And yet, even with all my grievances, I have returned to Toxic Commando over and over again. Saber Interactive is a uniquely dependable studio in its ability to deliver mid-budget thrills with scope and vision to spare. I admire their work for the hubris, if not all of the results. There aren't many games I'd continue to play with all of the aforementioned issues if I weren't having fun.

For all its faults, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is fun. If you're a fan of the genre, the man himself, or happen to have a dedicated group of like-minded friends around, you could do a lot worse than this. It won't set the world on fire, but it doesn't need to, either.