Well, it’s time for me to take a look at a game that I only put a review request in based on the title alone. Mustache in Hell comes from developer IdunaSoft and publisher QUByte Interactive, and it’s game about… a mustache in hell.

“A trip to hell. Hordes of demons. Big guns. Insane combat encounters. Pixel art mustaches. It’s going to be a long day for Officer John Mustache.”

You play as John Mustache, a police officer who finds himself not quite dead, but not alive either. Stuck in Limbo, you soon find Death and he sends you on a quest to recover the Cubes of Power. Said Cubes will give Death his powers to send you back to the land of the living. That’s ‘yer basic plot and with it out of the way, you can get to some demon killing.

Mustache in Hell is all about action, it’s a twin-stick shooter mixed with bullet hell. The controls are as simple, as you’d expect with a twin-stick shooter. One stick moves John (you) and the other aims and shoots. You have a dash move to help you get out of tight situations and a button for your secondary weapon. After a very brief tutorial, you are left to shoot hundreds of monsters in the face as you run around linear levels in search of the Cubes of Power.

The gameplay is frantic and brutal. You’ll be running down a corridor, grabbing keys and hitting switches to open doors. Those doors will lead to rooms where you will get swamped by hoards of enemies. Kill all of the enemies, grab a key and move on. When you do get mobbed by monsters, weapons will randomly appear and a rather handy arrow points to where they are. It becomes a bit of a mad dash as you try to grab a new gun, while numerous demons home in on you, all while you do your best to dodge bullets and even the odd trap or seven. The action in Mustache in Hell is pretty full-on and barely gives you enough time to breathe.

You are armed with a basic pistol that has unlimited ammo, so you’ll always have some form of attack. However, that pistol is a bit weak and nabbing one of the other guns is a must when things get hectic. SMGs, shotguns and even flamethrowers are what you need to turn the ever-spawning monsters into a pile of blood and bones, but these weapons have limited ammo. Then there is your secondary weapon such as a few grenades or mines. Add all of that up and you have a recipe for carnage.

Mustache in Hell is available now (or very, very soon) for Steam, Switch, PlayStation on Xbox and honestly, it’s really good fun. Very tough later on and this one will often have you pulling your hair out in frustration due to some sharp difficulty spikes… but still good fun. Priced at around £3, the low price reflects the low budget of the game and there are a few niggles, like weapons with ammo expiring way too fast but overall, Mustache in Hell is very playable if you like really tough shooters.