Hyper Jam

Genre: Top-Down Action / Party Game

Players: 1-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local, Online)

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Review:

Hyper Jam, released on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2019, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020, is a multiplayer-focused arena-based Top-Down Action Game that has up to four players fighting in an enclosed area, snatching up weapons as they become available. There’s not really any story here, though the game does have a cyberpunk setting and a selection of characters that fit in that setting.

The presentation in Hyper Jam really makes that cyberpunk theme work for the game, too. There’s a lot of detail both in the environments and characters, and some really excellent lighting and decent shadows. The game may have no story to speak of, but this definitely feels like a lived-in place. This is backed by some energetic music that quickly takes a back seat to the action. All things considered, pretty good for a budget title.

Where Hyper Jam really shines is its action, giving players a decent number of options in battle – they can dash and parry, they can fight bare-handed but will need to get in range and they won’t do much damage. They can pick up weapons as they spawn. Weapons can be charged for greater range or more powerful attacks. Probably the game’s biggest flaw is that there isn’t much variety in weapons available – only a half dozen or so.

However, the game makes up for this somewhat by giving players randomized upgrades in-between rounds to select from, with losing players choosing first. You can add fire, ice, or confusion status effects to your attacks, increase health or health regeneration, increase damage, improve move speed, reduce attack or dash cooldowns, and these effects stack from one round to the next, meaning that by the end of a match, players will have a fairly unique loadout unlike ones from previous sets.

Another nice feature is the inclusion of multiple match types and options, allowing players to modify the match to their liking. Again, I do wish there were more game modes here – the game only includes four including team variants. However, what’s here is fun enough to last a while in a party setting.

There is one other issue I should bring up here, and that is that the online lobbies in this game are completely abandoned, and for a multiplayer-focused game like this that’s particularly unfortunate. When you play this game, you’ll definitely want to bring friends.

Despite a lack of options and deserted online lobbies, Hyper Jam is still a blast to play. The core gameplay here is excellent, giving players a good balance of action and strategy, and the randomized between-round upgrades ensures that there’s plenty of variety to keep things interesting. If you’re looking for an action-packed Party Game to add to your collection, this is an excellent choice.

tl;dr – Hyper Jam is a multiplayer-focused arena-based Top-Down Action Game that has up to four players fighting it out in a cyberpunk setting. The action here is excellent, and although the game is lacking somewhat in options and weapon variety, it makes up for it by handing out random upgrades between matches that ensure each match is different. I would love to see this game expanded upon, but as-is this is a fantastic action-packed Party Game well worth adding to your collection.

Grade: B

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