Tag Archives: gun

Rocking Pilot (PC) Review

May 29, 2017 davepoobond (DPB) 4 Comments

Developer: Gungrounds | Publisher: Mad Head Games || Overall: 8.0/10

I’ve always been a bit soft on bullet hell shmup games. I mostly get frustrated at how cheap some of the elements can be and well, just the ridiculous amount of <curse in Xartraxian> flying around never screamed “fun!” to me. Rocking Pilot is a top-down twin-stick shooter that nestles right in with others in the genre. The titular character is a sarcastic romp through a futuristic war story that has the appropriate amount of tongue-in-cheek and rockin’ tunes keeps the pace up, the adrenaline flowing, and the decibels rising!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHH!!!!!

Rocking Pilot is a pretty simple concept. You shoot stuff and stuff blows up. However, the unique feature is using your helicopter’s propellers as a weapon as well. You can consider it a “melee attack,” going right up to the enemy, mowing them down, or enabling Overdrive, which makes you temporarily invincible and empowered to kill and deflect everything. Besides that, using Overdrive tactically is a necessity, otherwise you die, so you cant really use it on cooldown. Many enemies also require you to use Overdrive to kill them, so having a limited amount of Overdrive charge becomes an important resource to manage.

Game progression is interesting, taking its cue from mobile game trends. There are four worlds to unlock, each with about 10 levels. When defeating a level, you’ll earn an assortment of awards, each independent classification (such as “Keys,” “Crowns,” and “Skulls”) unlocking their own string of levels and/or weapons. Eventually, unlocking all of the weapons available makes your helicopter the most badass helicopter in all of history and all of the upgrades work in tandem. Power-ups will show up on the board and you’ll temporarily use one of your unlocked weapons; there isn’t much agency here to “choose” which weapons you want to use, but you take what you can get and use it all up.

There’s not much more to the game, but there’s a lot of gameplay to be had. I had spent about two hours and beat the main storyline, but there were still quite a few levels left to unlock, and most of the upgrades had yet to be discovered. Once you acquire upgrades it’s well worth going back and trying previous levels you left uncompleted to see if you can earn even more upgrades. The upgrades definitely make things easier for you and also keep things fresher. The Score Attack mode available seems to be based on leaderboards, and challenge you to get higher on the board before awarding you, which can be quite an ask. You can also restart your progress by deleting save data, so if you pine for the half hour where you only had a minigun, no missiles or shotguns and <curse in Xartraxian>, then it’s there for you. Also, since you die a lot, having to wait a few seconds and physically confirm two times between each retry can get a bit tiresome, and breaks up the fast-paced feel the game tries hard to sustain.

The art is not too bad; it starts out generic at first then gets a little bit more wacky. Eventually you start fighting aliens and that’s when the art begins to please. There are some talking-head characters which are very nicely drawn, but this creative look doesn’t seem to carryover at all into the actual game for some reason. The helicopter is also just some generic-looking helicopter, but maybe that’s the point there. The sound is also very important in creating the experience of fast-paced craziness.

Rocking Pilot is mostly a challenge waiting to be had. Once you get through the main story, you’ll have to go back and clean up what you didn’t do the first time around, and then some. There isn’t anything in the way of a “free play” mode other than the Score Attacks, but those aren’t available on every mission anyway. You’ll be heading into each mission with particular objectives in mind, most of them fairly unique. The price tag is also very reasonable and if you are looking for a simpler, contemporary shmup, Rocking Pilot might be your <curse in Xartraxian>.

Rocking Pilot is available on Steam.

Games, Game Reviews

Forts (PC) Review

April 24, 2017 davepoobond (DPB) Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: EarthWork Games | Overall: 8.0/10

Forts is described as a “physics-based RTS where foes design and build custom bases.” Think what happens when you mash Angry Birds with Worms and you’ll get the idea of what Forts actually is. While there is custom base building, it doesn’t inspire much imagination, and ends up being a means to an end rather than going all Minecraft on it. Satisfying wins, weaponry, and the humorous single player story make this title a recommendable choice to play.

To cut to the chase, I enjoyed what I played of Forts. While it isn’t that expansive in terms of number of weapons, the style of combat and the race to upgrade is actually quite a unique blend from this perspective. The physics are very goofy when you have to deal with them on your side, but are quite entertaining when your enemy’s base is exploding. Though there isn’t a huge variety, the weapons all feel like they have a purpose, have their own powerful upgrades and base design actually affects how they operate.

Unfortunately the biggest standout is that base design is a clunky mess. It is very hard to expand your base, and there’s not much to help you with understanding how you should and shouldn’t build. Your expansions can only attach to ground that is classified as “Foundation,” of which there is very little of. Otherwise, everything else will be hanging off your previous expansions and if you get too risky, things will break off or in the most catastrophic moments, take other pieces of your base with it. This obviously is meant to reward the better base-builder since both sides will be rushing to build a better base to destroy the others, but it can be frustrating when you don’t know how else you are supposed to build.

The ultimate goal of battles is to destroy your opponent’s Reactor. The Reactor is located in different places in the base, but is usually in a protected location. It is also your objective to defend yours until you destroy the enemy’s. Most of the single player levels challenge you to think of different ways to build your base/weaponry/etc to defeat the AI before they kill you. The AI seems competent enough on Normal and can still be a worthwhile challenge. There are also Easy and Hard modes, if you are looking to tune the difficulty a bit. Other than Single Player, you can play in Skirmish or Sandbox modes. Skirmish is essentially an easy way to play a 1-on-1 fight against the AI on a chosen map. Sandbox mode is essentially a “practice” mode where you can build as much as you like and control both players. Forts also seems like it would be built for multiplayer, as the game is a competition between two sides. While multiplayer can be fun, it is mostly hit or miss.

The way to join a game is through a Lobby system, rather than matchmaking. Teams are set, people chat, and then everyone has to ready-up in the Lobby. This would be fine as an additional mode if there were a lot of options to consider or modify, but the only impactful factor here is in the map selection. It seems like the game would benefit immensely from matchmaking as its default to join a game and there would be less downtime in trying to find and join a game, with a benefit of randomizing the map. There are quite a few different maps, with some that require unique tactics. All of these maps are available through Skirmish and Sandbox modes as well.

With that said, there are other issues with the way the Lobby system technically works. People may forget to Ready up fast enough delaying the pace of getting into a game. If someone disconnects, everyone is kicked back to the lobby without warning, and anyone can pause the game without notifying who is doing the pausing. If one player quits after pausing, then all players get kicked to the lobby. Even though there are no stats or any sort of meta game to worry about, people who don’t like losing would probably just quit before letting it play out and it spoils the experience for the other people playing. Joining a lobby game is also hard because if you don’t connect you just get booted back to the server list with no explanation and you may still see the game you tried to join in the server list. There also doesn’t seem to be a “random” map option, and the couple of times I tried adding an AI player they just didn’t do anything. I played a couple of multiplayer matches with Unnamedhero, and while he hadn’t been through the single player mode at all, he began to pick up on a few of the mechanics pretty quickly after a couple of matches. While the tactics and buildings are generally simple, when you are in an arms race against other players, the mastery of all of the mechanics will make for the ultimate challenge within the confines of this title.

The art and music are generally pleasing, and the sound effects are satisfying, especially when your enemy’s reactor explodes. The single player mode has some very relevant political/war humor; very tongue-in-cheek. For example, a reference to “Facts News” is an obvious play on “Fox News” and a biting commentary on the network itself. Too bad Bill O’Reilly wasn’t a playable character. Or would it be Phil O’Rightly? I don’t know. It probably would have been more fun to have more parodies of political/historical figures but instead we got generic commanders and other characters instead.

Forts is pretty recommendable to anyone who enjoys Worms/Angry Birds or are intrigued by a genre mash-up between the two. I would not recommend the game to leg fetishists, though. There are not a lot of legs in the game. But, there are explosions. Conciliatory prize to leg fetishists looking for a game? I Report, You Decide.

Games, Game Reviews

FZ9: Timeshift (iOS) Review

March 25, 2017 davepoobond (DPB) Leave a comment

Developer/Publisher: Hiker Games | Overall: 7.5/10

When it comes to games, there are few things that make me physically cringe just thinking about. Genres sometimes just don’t belong on the platform they try to be on, first person shooters possibly being the #1 example of what not to play on your phone or tablet. The thought of analog controls on a touch screen, and being forced to be accurate in your shots is not an appealing thought in my head. There would probably be a hundred other things I’d rather do, including writing an article lambasting the very thought of having to bother with it.

Here’s the thing with FZ9: Timeshift. It isn’t terrible. In fact, it’s playable, and possibly even enjoyable to people with my mindset going into it! The gameplay hook of having everything in bullet time alleviates the typical frantic pace you would expect from first person shooters and gives you time to adjust and compensate due to the awful control method. The worst things about the game aren’t even the gameplay itself, but the same old tired restrictions you typically see in a free to play game: two different types of currencies, one being a premium currency, and a time-based Energy “recharge” that allows you to continue playing until you have no more to spend. There’s also grinding endlessly for “Battle Points” and “Experience Points” to get further in the game, and while you get something of a progression effect for your efforts in doing so, it feels obnoxiously gated.

Of course, these things come with the territory when you commit to a free to play game, I guess. There has to be a revenue stream somehow. The restrictions don’t seem too tight, since every couple hours you’ll be back to full speed and able to play for about 15 to 20 minutes or so. Depending on your lifestyle this may be just fine for you. For me personally, it breaks up the kinds of games I normally play on my phone, which are almost exclusively in the puzzle genre.

What is really lacking here is a specific hook to make you want to come back and keep playing. The story is pretty awful on the outset, so that’s not really a motivating factor. The designs of the missions are essentially on-rails (you move freely, but no exploration is involved, and you move down corridors), so they don’t offer much in different outcomes or things to do. The missions get a little bit more interesting once you hit Chapter 2, but any semblance of a story is thrown into the garbage. The missions cost 1 Energy (out of your maximum 10) to play but would be pretty boring to grind, so you may as well just do the Cycle Mission, which costs 2 Energy. The Cycle Mission is an assortment of challenges that you will randomly get assigned to and complete in pursuit of grinding Battle Points to unlock more talents. Those missions are actually designed in a lot more fun way than the on-rails shooting the story mode forces you through. The talents you unlock are linked to unlocking content, which become more challenging. Once you complete Chapter 2, you’ll unlock a “PVP” mode in which you’ll try to beat another player by completing one of the solo missions faster than they can. While it is more exciting to play through the solo missions in this way, it costs more Energy, too.

The music is intense as fuck. During some levels, it weaves in and out between “level music” and “battle music” which can be kind of annoying since you are constantly reengaging with enemies. It doesn’t seem to happen all of the time, though, so it just seems to rely on how the level is designed. I always have my phone on silent, so its not really something that mattered to me in the end. The graphics are something from early PlayStation 2 days, if that — passable for a phone, but not the best you can see on the platform. You also kill a lot of dogs, so if you like animals more than humans, maybe you should skip this title. I suppose the dogs ARE trying to kill you, so maybe it won’t be that big of a deal.

If there’s enjoyment to be had out of this game, it is very limited. While the bullet time aspect of the game makes a playable title for your phone, it doesn’t make it particularly fun or exciting. There does seem to be quite a few chapters of single player mode, but again, the story is awful, and nothing is really making me want to come back for more of it or anything else. But hey, it’s free.

Dictionary

oroedopod

November 6, 2016 davepoobond Leave a comment

oroedopod – v. to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel

Games, Game Reviews

8DAYS (PC) Review

July 18, 2016 davepoobond (DPB) Leave a comment

Developer: Santa Clara Games | Publisher: Badland Games || Overall: 8.5

8DAYS is an indie twin-stick shooter from two-man team Santa Clara Games. Drawing heavily from the contemporary example of Hotline Miami, you’ll even see influence from Metal Gear and traditional “shmups” in this genre cocktail. The action is spread out over five Chapters, each with a satisfying length and unique theme.

The scenario for the characters you play, known as Lola “Wasp” Cruz and Mike “Ghost” Doe, starts with them working for a Private Military Corporation known as G.O.D. Inc. (Gold, Oil, Diamonds Inc.). This PMC is apparently the most successful in the world and has its fingers in many political pies — being hired when shit goes down. For example, the first Chapter has to do with stopping a rice embargo, and the second with a nuclear plant being taken over by Eco-terrorists. Each Chapter starts with a little vignette to set up the specific mission at hand, and off you go. The game has tongue-in-cheek humor, considering that the rice embargo is only a problem because the affluent want their daily sushi; another example being the sewers of the nuclear plant have tentacle monsters swimming around in green water, a sharp contrast from the “grounded” first chapter. The nuclear plant is also occupied by droves of robots that use pistols/rifles/flamethrowers, and then in the middle somewhere you fight some strange mechanical/biological creature that barfs on you as one of his attacks. It would seem all of these experiments would be a bit much for an energy production facility owned by a utility company. You also see random “civilians” just moseying about as you have firefights and they tend to get killed in the crossfire or run around and make strange noises.

Normal gameplay consists of strategically taking down enemies before they kill you and getting to the next area. While there isn’t a requirement to kill everything, if you trip an alarm or are seen by them, they will engage and have the possibility of flanking you. Deaths will restart you at the very beginning of the area, and some of them can be a bit large. There are usually multiple paths or strategies to take when completing an area, so if one way doesn’t work, you can try another. Stealth is also an accessible strategy if you have a melee weapon, as there are a lot of places to hide while enemies patrol around. Some situations require a gunfight, but as long as you kill whoever is engaged with you, you won’t run the risk of drawing more enemies into the fight. Bullets are very large and also move slower than you might expect them to depending on the weapon, so it can either be a boon or frustration in that regard. Co-Op is also available, with a friend being able to jump in at anytime during play.

At certain points through a Chapter you’ll encounter a boss, which breaks up the methodical think-before-you-leap gameplay and works in a traditional shmup-style fight. As with many things in the game, they take the opportunity to be referential — the final boss of the first Chapter is a Rambo-look-a-like with a machine gun, knife, and red bandana. You’ll also encounter some other Easter Eggs, such as a “V Has Come To” scribbled on the wall and a party with Metal Gear Solid characters (which is oddly appropriate for me since I’ve been playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain for the past month and a half).

Weaponry is varied, and in the initial stages you’ll mostly encounter rifles, shotguns, and SMGs. You will also see a lot of melee weapons, and as you get further along rocket launchers, silenced pistols, flamethrowers, and EMP bombs become available. Sometimes destroying certain types of boxes/crates produce ammo, otherwise you’ll be scavenging from your enemies. Reloading is clip-based, meaning if you manually reload before completely emptying your clip, you will lose the ammo you had remaining. This might be a bit annoying considering the game let’s you reload even when you have a full clip, so you can easily waste bullets if you aren’t careful; you aren’t allowed to pick up a clip you threw away. You are only able to keep two weapons at a time, so if you wanted to hang onto a melee weapon you may be exchanging guns quite a bit.

Considering the game can be very challenging, the amount of playtime would potentially vary for you. Each Chapter kept me going for about an hour, and I died a lot on the way, having to retry over and over. When done with a Chapter, you’re treated with a little resolution to the problem you solved and then go right into the next scenario. Chapters are able to be replayed if you so desire, but will only fully unlock in the menu when you finish the level — if you are in the middle of the stage and start a new game you’ll lose all progress and start from the very beginning again. When you get a Game Over, it is unfortunately very easy to accidentally select “Retry Mission” instead of just “Retry.” There is no confirmation after accidentally selecting “Retry Mission” and you can lose all progress with no way to go back… admittedly, I learned that the hard way. There is also no difference in the gameplay between the two characters you can choose, but I personally preferred the character design of “Wasp” over “Ghost.”

The art style is a purposeful throwback to the 8-bit days, though it has a lot more detail to its art than you may normally see when you think “8-bit.” There is some gruesome death, such as decapitations and gore, and there are also depictions of torture and tons of previously-killed bodies are strewn about levels, which all enhance the violent atmosphere. The little intro movies to each Chapter are pretty neat, but aren’t too long. Other stylistic parts of the game also round out the unique feeling of the art and grows on you as you pay closer attention to the detail and are eventually exposed to the variety of locales each Chapter offers. The music is also a high point, but dips in and out, crossfading with “battle music” every time you start an encounter with an enemy. This takes away from the enjoyment of the main stage track since you’ll be constantly going in and out of two different songs, but it isn’t disjointed enough where its awful, just a questionable decision in the sound design.

If you’re in the mood for a side-scrolling shmup, 8DAYS is a challenging and satisfying experience. Defeating each area rewards you with a feeling of accomplishment — earning your wins little by little and progressing you to a new challenge. 8DAYS will be available July 22nd on Steam.

Games, Game Reviews

Super Mutant Alien Assault (PC) Review

July 13, 2016 davepoobond (DPB) 1 Comment

Developer: Cybernate | Publisher: Surprise Attack Games || Overall: 8.5/10

Super Mutant Alien Assault (SMAA) bears no shame in calling itself a clone of “Super Crate Box.” Fortunately for SMAA, I never heard of (nor played) the game it is a clone of, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt when it says that’s what it is. Now, aside from the gasping in the back corners of the room by those who cannot fathom that someone does not know the “smash hit” Super Crate Box, I say nay nay, good sir. I heard of it now, and Super Mutant Alien Assault appeals to me on its face much more than whatever that other thing is. Plus, I like clones because it reminds me of one of my favorite Schwarzenegger movies, The 6th Day.

“You should clone yourself. So you can go fuck yourself.” (Paraphrased quote from The 6th Day)

SMAA is a platforming shooter that constrains you in one small level. Each level contains a particular objective that must be completed before proceeding to the next, along the way massacring as many aliens as you need to. SMAA, at its core, rides on the “roguelite” wave, but only wades in just a bit. Power-ups are collected, but don’t endlessly stack — you have a limited amount of slots available for special abilities, weapons, and defenses. Your character isn’t going to get crazy combinations of power-ups, but most of what you use will be swapped for something else that drops. This forces you to work on a constantly changing strategy throughout your gameplay, rather than sticking with “what works” for as long as you can. On top of it all, health can be very hard to come by, which makes the game quite a bit unforgiving. Friendly-fire is also a thing here, so you’ll have to be careful where you chuck your explosives, just in case it bounces back in your general direction.

Level designs and objectives are randomized, but there is a set amount of maps that cycle within each “Galaxy,” which is a set of four levels. There are no procedurally-generated maps, and objectives will only appear on particular levels designed for that objective. This doesn’t detract from the enjoyment but it can get a bit stale depending on how long you decide to play in one go. Objectives include moving an item from Point A to Point B or releasing a build-up of pressure on multiple points on the map. It is important to get the objective done as fast as possible, as enemies will gain strength the longer you stay in a level. A level will always require you to clear whatever enemies remain once the objective is fulfilled, so the path of least resistance will not be rewarded in the slightest.

Game unlocks occur as you complete more levels. Each time you clear a stage you gain a token that sets you along the path to the next automatic unlock. As you unlock more weaponry/items you’ll also unlock more enemies to have fun with — although this seems more like a punishment when it happens. It would have been nicer to see enemies unlocked in a different progression, such as number of enemies killed or if a particular boss was cleared.

“Kinda takes the fun out of living, doesn’t it?”

When you actually get into the gameplay it can be quite frantic and most of it is satisfying. Each level is equipped with its own configuration of Weapon/Explosive vending machines that randomly equip you with one of the weapons you have unlocked so far. Explosions are by far the most fulfilling thing about the game and it’s a lot of fun to be able to blow the aliens up with a well-timed grenade or cluster bomb. Some of the normal weaponry is not as exciting, such as the dual submachine guns and the AK47, but the minigun, sniper rifle, and grenade launcher are fun to wield. My favorite by far is the pogo stick that explodes things you jump on top of — it would have been great if this was more the kind of thing you saw in the game, but instead it is the outlier. Your weaponry/explosives all have a set number of charges, so you’ll be needing to re-equip yourself as soon as you use up your ammo, which means you’ll get a random item and change your strategy to effectively use your new combination. Each level also grants you new power-ups in crates to fill out your other ability slots, such as Special Abilities and Defenses.

Special Abilities are fun to use and varied, despite the fact they aren’t able to be used that much due to needing to collect Special Ammo. Special Ammo drops when you defeat empowered monsters that stick around for a while on the map, and you have to run over the green squares that are dropped before they expire. This may not always be possible. Special Abilities and Defenses (that are free to use) include but are not limited to a pillar of energy, pushbacks, running fast, and bullet time. Defenses don’t damage enemies, but not all Special Abilities deal damage either.

The art is nice and attention is paid to the aliens and levels. The art style reminds me of old Windows 3.1-era games (not that far removed from DOS games) with a 90’s retro-futuristic design. The game also runs like a dream 95% of the time, except when you enter hyperdrive when that objective comes around. The frame lag is helped if you turn off the Screen Shake in the options, but is still apparent even after turning it off — I’m unsure if this is actually intended or not, though, since it “snaps out” of the frame lag as soon as you exit the hyperdrive sequence. It unfortunately gets pretty annoying when you experience it for the umpteenth time. The music is all high-energy EDM/Dubstep/electro music and depending on your personal tastes may either be enjoyable or create misery. It all matches the tempo of the game, but I was somewhere in the middle of the scale with the arrangement. After about an hour of gameplay, I muted the music and opted for some of my own with the sound effects still on top.

“Doesn’t anybody die any more?”

The game feels a bit bare-bones when you realize that the progression is tied to unlocking weapons through a small number of levels. Three Galaxies of four levels account for a total of twelve stages, each Galaxy cycling from its own small pool of levels/unlocked bosses. By design, you’ll be retrying the game over and over since death is inevitable. Each Galaxy has their own color scheme and set of levels to cycle through, and the game lets you begin on either of the three galaxies you like once you’ve beaten the previous boss level. To unlock a higher difficulty level you have to start from the first Galaxy and go all the way to the last without dying — which can be quite a task depending on your skills. Familiarizing yourself with the levels that cycle within a chosen Galaxy is the only way you’ll be able to get through it all in one go.

Super Mutant Alien Assault essentially appeals to those who look for a challenge in their games. A lot of gameplay comes from perfecting your skills and attempting to get through as many levels as possible before dying and resetting. The assortment of weapons are fun, keep you on your toes, and as you unlock more powerful weapons and abilities, you’re bound to get further at some point. However, the biggest buff isn’t a tangible item in the game, it’s your own perseverance to try again and again and again and again….

Super Mutant Alien Assault is available now on Steam for $7.99, currently discounted by 20% from $9.99.

Jokes, (F) Quicky Jokes

Joke #24667

March 26, 2016 davepoobond Leave a comment

Q: How do you shoot a killer bee?

A: With a bee-bee gun.

Games, Game Reviews

Super Mutant Alien Assault (PC) Early Access Preview

September 15, 2015 Unnamedhero 1 Comment

Developer: Cybernate | Publisher: Surprise Attack Games

Super Crate Box /soo-per kreyt boks/
(Proper Noun)

a retro style indie game known for it’s three major gameplay aspects: the item
crates that appear throughout the level, one-room-per-stage level design and
wave after wave of enemies are set upon the player.

(Adjective)

based on “Super Crate Box” and often sharing many similar designs.

There you go! I took that made up and somewhat redundant combination of words and defined it so you didn’t have too. You can thank me later.

Developed by Cybernate, published by Surprise Attack Games and in the very early part of its early access career, Super Mutant Alien Assault is a retro-style action game that sets to re-polish your 2D trigger finger and reacquaint you with your old jump-to-dodge tactics from days of video games past. Considering itself the “Citizen Kane” of Super Crate Box clones (this is about the point where you should be thanking me), it shares many similar designs with the old 2010 game, as well as, it’s own little spin on the little known sub-genre.

Playing the part of security droids burdened with protecting cryogenically frozen humans that have escaped a dying earth, you must defend against herds of aliens while wielding a varied and random assortment of weapons, explosives and special abilities. Along the way to extraterrestrial genocide, there is a simple but sometimes difficult objective that must be cleared. Whether it is transporting something from point A to point B, stopping a series of explosives set around the stage, or simple eradication of the alien menace, it usually requires a careful balance between killing and completing the objective. To add to your troubles, the radiation your ship is apparently leaking (which I’m sure passed the high standards of whatever safety commission was involved in designing these ships) makes the Aliens evolve into bigger and stronger versions of themselves every few seconds. So if you somehow complete the objective without destroying a single alien, you’d find yourself with a screen’s worth of aggressive and powerful aliens that must be destroyed before moving onto the next stage.

If put into one word, I’d say this game is hardbutfair. Though there is a spot of chance involved with the abilities, guns and explosives you have at any particular moment due to their random nature, I never thought the game treated me unfairly. The randomness, in fact, was part of the fun. Responding and adapting to my ever-changing assortment of explosives and guns forced me to think on my feet and change my strategy at a moment’s notice. Thankfully, the game had plenty of options even in this early version. From the standard to the bizarre, one moment you’ll find yourself gunning down the alien herd with a machine gun and double jump combination, and the next having to use your explosive Pogo stick to “Mario” your way to victory by jumping on top of the aliens. Local multiplayer is also available and strikes the same strategy-changing beats, though it is a bit easier since you are allowed to revive a fallen comrade. Overall, even at an early stage, the game has the potential to be a challenging but fun game.

While fun, that’s not to say the game doesn’t have its hiccups. The game is still very early in its Early Access cycle and it shows. In particular, the game has a few bugs to iron out. Though, not always, if the game is left paused for a few moments it will freeze and then close itself. Another bug makes the game’s frame rate drop by half whenever a countdown is taking place. Super Mutant Alien Assault is also very short, packing only 9 regular stages, three boss stages and a few unlockables in this early build; it has very little content. Of course, this is all likely to change in the coming months and upon full release.

Much like the security droids in the game, the developers of Super Mutant Alien Assault have some bugs to work out before its full release, sometime later this year or early next year. Though if they do manage to eradicate the alien menace that makes the game buggy and add more content to it in the process, the game might keep its promise in being the “Citizen Kane” of Super Crate Box clones… whatever that means.

When not writing previews as Unnamedhero, Eduardo Luquin can be reached at unnamedheromk13@gmail.com.