Mediocre games are usually hard to recommend, but sometimes an unfocused experience can be the most broadly appealing. Killer is Dead doesn’t have particularly deep mechanics or an emotionally engaging story, but Suda 51’s excessive design sensibilities make it a joy to play. Everything is so cranked up past the point of sanity that you want to keep playing just to see where he’s going with all this. He wanted a protagonist with a cool name, so he went with something so cool that it wrapped around into uncoolness a few times and landed on “Mondo Zappa”. Cybernetics are cool, so Mondo has a cybernetic arm that’s about the size of his torso. Tarantino-esque violence can look pretty cool, so the gameplay is about using a giant katana with a hilarious amount of blood spray. It’s a beautifully campy presentation, with the unifying idea being simple, visceral fun. It would be a great pickup for people looking for the video game equivalent of a comic book, or are interested in an unintimidating entry point to the action genre. It’s also incredibly cheap during Steam sales, which makes the half-baked elements much more palatable. Four bucks and a sense of humor are low requirements for seven hours of fun.