There aren’t very many games in the “insult simulator” genre so, in this very limited category of games, we now present you with Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast. If you’ve ever played “dirty dozens” or “yo mama” with your friends, you’ve probably done this in real life before and maybe even gotten into a few fights over it but, now you can do it with a videogame controller and less creativity.

This game, by indie developer Vile Monarch, places you in a 1 on 1 battle to hurt your opponent’s feelings. The game’s selectable roster consists of parodies from some popular franchises such as Deadpool, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and even a “what if” scenario with a character resembling a very seasoned Marilyn Monroe aptly named Marilyn Nomore.

They’ve chosen a very “unique” art style with their character designs and sets. Each level is designed as a setting from which the characters originated but lack any depth or creativity. I would have loved to have seen some Easter eggs relating to each movie giving the player a reason to pay closer attention to the background. The satirized catalog of characters are presented as 2D caricatures that you’d expect to see in a Picasso painting with odd proportions and a very limited range of slide show style animations related to their character’s respective roles.

In each round, you and your combatant are given a bank of sentence fragments to piece together to create an insult turn by turn. The damage system consists of a sort of pride meter that’s depleted based off of the quality of the insult you can dish. As your character takes damage, a 3 tiered ‘comeback’ meter fills up to end your roasts with a damage bonus but, very rarely do these persona related lines of dialogue make sense in relation to the insult you’ve delivered.

They have a system of gauging the quality of these roasts but to be honest, none of them, whether delivered by your character or your opponent, actually managed to be funny. You’ll find it hard to appraise the quality of the roasts, as some that curiously fall flat deal massive amounts of damage. The strongest attacks are based off of each character’s emotional weakness and repetition of previously iterated lines whereas in a real roast, repetition will only get you booed. I’ve found my key to success in just being able to create as long a cohesive sentence as possible while selecting lines of dialogue that stop my rival from being able to complete their sentences.

The voice acting is fairly well done and surprisingly well delivered despite the repetitive lines of dialogue given to each character. I may have been more entertained hearing their comical impressions rather than seeing the actual abstract art direction of the characters. There isn’t very much music in game but I was pleasantly pleased to have found an inkling of entertainment in the final boss’s theme song, Came a Long Way by Dark Chocolate. Stupid moniker, I know but, the track is entertaining enough.

Despite the lackluster presentation, I did sink quite a bit of time into the game outside of my requirement. I see value in the concept and it can be addictive in nature with some solid effort put into the presentation however, this particular iteration missed the mark.

Graphics: 3.5 Odd Picasso-esque. disproportional caricatures on forgettable backgrounds	Gameplay: 4.0 Roasts that don’t make much sense or don’t seem very funny seem to score high without a real system of logic
Sound: 5.0 Nothing very notable besides the track that plays during the boss battle. Serviceable at best.	Fun Factor: 5.5 The concept is original and engaging however, the execution is mundane and unsatisfying
Final Verdict: 4.5

Reviewed on PS4.
Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast is available now on Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC, Android, and iOS.
A copy of Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast was provided by the publisher.