Bahnsen Knights [Review]
The third game in LCB Games Studios’ Pixel Pulps series is a gritty, weird ride.
Image credit: Chorus Worldwide / LCB Game Studios
An undercover agent with a dead mentor. Strange weather phenomena. A cult with a charismatic and dangerous leader. A fleet of Ford Sierras. These are some of the things you’ll find in Bahnsen Knights, LCB Game Studios’ latest in its Pixel Pulps series, published by Chrous Worldwide.
Toni, a used car salesman that lost everything to the tornadoes that are plaguing the country, found a warehouse full of Ford Sierras and took it as a sign to found the Bahnsen Knights. Now his followers ride the cars, emblazoned with crimson crosses, performing “road exorcisms” for oncoming storms and feeding their enemies to tornadoes as sacrifices; they’re a perverse combination of cult and biker gang.
The player is Boulder, an undercover agent from an unnamed government agency who has infiltrated the cult. He’s there to investigate what happened to his predecessor and friend, and to find evidence of the cult’s criminal activities to put Toni away.
Image credit: Chorus Worldwide / LCB Game Studios
Image credit: Chorus Worldwide / LCB Game Studios
Bahnsen Knights is a visual novel. As scenes play out, the player makes choices for Boulder that move the story forward. The game’s short length doesn’t provide enough of an opportunity to get to know some of the more interesting characters outside of Boulder and Toni. I found Bahnsen Knights’ evocative ambiance and setting—a tornado ravaged midwestern plain, open highway, abandoned barns, and seedy dive bars—more interesting than the narrative itself, heavy with pulp detective style internal monologues that are a mixed bag and don’t do enough to build suspense.
Image credit: Chorus Worldwide / LCB Game Studios
Instead, the most suspenseful scenes happen as timed events where the player navigates menus to move cars left or right through oncoming traffic, or search for evidence by looking through an office before guards come back. I would have preferred the tension be built a different way other than these clunky scenes. At least its easy to reload if you fail and die. The game also has a couple of minigames—an entertaining spin on solitaire and a cursed darts game I was never able to win—as well as some rather easy puzzles to do things like decipher clues or classify evidence.
Image credit: Chorus Worldwide / LCB Game Studios
I loved Bahnsen Knights’ visual style. The graphics that accompany the story are in an old computer game EGA style with a very limited but striking color palette of red, magenta, white, cyan, and black. If only games from that era actually looked this good. Most scenes are still images, with the exception of some simple animations that bring certain ones to life. Like the graphics, the dialogue and UI are also rendered in the same chunky pixellated style, using classic MacOS font Chicago or a variant of it. The game’s chiptune soundtrack, like the graphics, help place the game in that bygone EGA graphics era. These things make Bahnsen Knights a game you should’t miss.
I’ve critiqued the writing and the narrative a bit sharply, yet I couldn’t stop playing until the credits rolled. The atmosphere, setting, graphics, and music make Bahnsen Knights a game you shouldn’t miss.
Bahnsen Knights is available now for PC (Steam, GOG), Playstation 4 / 5, Xbox One / Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
