Butcher's Creek should have been named Kill Streak. I mean, what else would you name a game about a man on a naked axe-murder rampage through a cult compound? Released just a few days ago, it's the sort of short, low-fi and pointedly horrible experience that its lone developer David Szymanski (Dusk, Iron Lung, Squirrel Stapler) is increasingly known for. Filthy, rusty, rough-edged horror adventures of movie length or less. Just long enough to get under your skin and have you turning them over in your head for a while.
Playing a bit like a budget-priced and condensed (but every bit as grimy) riff on Condemned: Criminal Origins, Butcher's Creek is a game that revels in slasher horror violence. Playing as a wandering uber-killer investigating reports of an Appalachian murder-cult, you're here to brutalize all in your path while collecting snuff videotapes (used to save the game) and enthusiastically building up your collection of polaroid murder photos, which, concerningly, also restores your health. You are not the good guy here. There are no good guys. A good guy would have prioritized getting dressed before going on a rampage.
