- 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 11/Sep 03:21

Eat the Rich: Greed Games – Preview

Online party games have seen an increase in popularity since the release of titles such as Among Us, and it seems that trend is nowhere near done. Outside of competitive party games, we also see a boom in cooperative titles, such as UNDERWARD, Murky Divers, and many more. This time, we have a mix of both with the Early Access version of Eat the Rich: Greed Games, as you will need to work together with other players only to shatter those alliances later on. Eat the Rich: Greed Games has a fairly simple premise, as it revolves around billionaires fighting for their lives in a game show-like setting. While the game itself is light on story content, the world’s economy has apparently collapsed, and now the masses are punishing billionaires by letting them put on a deadly show. The richest man standing will go home unscathed, but all others will end up with their head on a platter. The presentation somewhat reminded us of a cleaner The Binding of Isaac meets Penarium. We assume that many people will not immediately see the connection between those two titles, but they sprang to mind rather quickly for us. The sound design is also quite decent, but during the actual gameplay, you’ll probably be focusing on the voice chat a lot more than all the other sound effects. Full disclosure: for our pre-Early Access test, we played the game in private lobbies with a minimum of six players. If you don’t have a sufficient number of players, the game offers the option to add bots, but games like these are best enjoyed with real people. Even so, we experienced quite a few connection issues, and for every single game, we had to create a new lobby, which was a bit bothersome. Other than these minor issues, it was smooth sailing from that point onwards. In the game, it’s basically your goal to be the last man standing with the most money in your pockets. If just making it through the mini-games was your only worry, things wouldn’t be so bad, but the other contestants can vote out players between rounds. And if they suspect a player of having the most money or being the biggest risk, then you might just get kicked out. When you get kicked out early game, however, you’ll have a chance to make it over to the defectors’ side, and you can still have a second go at coming out on top. While the voting segment may sound like other players can simply gang up on one target, it’s actually also a key component to bluff and hopefully survive another round. During the voting round, you can also use items that can make you immune, force another player to be your scapegoat when you’re voted out, or even allow you to steal another player’s votes. It’s a great game of deception and strategy, and it’s always nice if you have an ace up your sleeve. It’s your goal to earn as much money as possible, without letting the other participants know. Of course, via the voice chat, you can bluff and even accuse other players of stealing your money in specific mini-games, to sway the votes to other players. Beware of the aforementioned items, though. During the game, you can also give other players gifts or curses, which may help you in the long run as well, if you keep certain players alive. Defectors can also offer players interesting power-ups, such as immunity or even vote changers, but if players accept their offers, the defectors will earn money, also giving them a chance of winning the Greed Games. Of course, performing well during the mini-game rounds will also net you a pretty penny. The games vary from an Overcooked-like cooking game to a violent Scrabble-like game in which a team needs to finish a word by placing blocks with letters in the right order first. While we had an absolute blast with the chaotic fun that Eat the Rich threw at us, we did find the current offering of mini-games to be very limited. Every single match, we started off with the cooking mini-game, and in the following rounds, things were a bit more random. There are currently only a handful of mini-games, which is a shame and will hurt the game’s longevity and replay value. As this is, of course, only the start of the Early Access period, we expect a lot of new content to be added as the developers continue polishing the experience. Conclusion Eat the Rich: Greed Games is an interesting and very amusing party game when played with the right group. Even though the current build may be a bit lacking in content, we are very much looking forward to new mini-games being added in the future and, perhaps possible new play modes as well. This is certainly a title we’ll be picking up from time to time as it goes through its development period. If you’re a fan of similar titles, we suggest keeping your eyes on this one.