Mini Review: Just Die Already (PS4) - This Game About the Elderly Is Juvenile Fun

Abuse of the elderly is, as a rule, generally discouraged. So, despite belonging to a fairly unshockable generation, we were a little bit taken aback by the sheer gerontophobia of the wickedly funny Just Die Already, which effectively does for the elderly what Goat Simulator did for, well, goats.

Pick your pensioner, get kicked out of your nursing home by any means necessary, then both literally and figuratively go to town. You’re given an extensive “bucket list” — essentially a clutch of silly things to do — then left to your own devices, encouraged to make a nuisance of yourself. This essentially amounts to physics tomfoolery, though there's an enjoyable amount of platforming; new areas keep coming and each one is accompanied by a torrent of stuff, items to grab and misuse, pedestrians to antagonise, and a general surplus of ways in which to drain society's resources. Ticking goals off your bucket list unlocks new items to play with, tools by which one can continue to spitefully destroy lives.

The controls are simple — L1 and R1 to grab stuff in your gimmer’s respective hand, then L2 or R2 to use them: swing them around like a bludgeon, or smash them, or eat them, or whatever. You can also hit Square to taunt, infuriating or terrifying anyone nearby, and stab Triangle to respawn your fogey. They’re very vulnerable, prone to having their arms and legs fly off and heads explode. This can lead to frustration when a physics quirk sends you shooting off into the stratosphere and turning your haggard nearly-dead into a really-dead.

Just Die Already is an enjoyably mean-spirited game that would cross the line into hateful if it wasn’t so gleeful in its disrespect for elders. Less Octodad, more octogenarian, a surplus of the usual physics sandbox glitches don’t detract from fun that's as densely packed as the very coffins you're dodging.