First up, I like the guy..I mean the one that’s supposed to be you. You burst out laughing when you see the chap standing at the left-hand side corner of your screen and bouncing up and down.. breathing. Oh ok! Atleast I did! One of my friends remarked – “Oh! That little guy is so damn cute!”
Anyways, continuing on my review, I can say this is a very kewl game. You start off with a Training level and end up being quite a pro at bringing down copters and Blimps!
The menus are all pretty neat and straight forward, with, an exception discussed in the para where I’m discussing about the Graphics (below)
[SCREENSHOT : 1 – Main Menu]
Luckily, you can customize the keys from the “Options” section. The default set is kinda hard. Or..maybe I felt it that way because of too much of racing. I had my “fingers crossed” quite a few times before I chose to change it.
[SCREENSHOT : 2 – Options]
The Graphics are neat and light. I didn’t get any “freeze-ups” while I was playing. You can change the quality of graphics from the “New Player” screen [shown in SCREENSHOT:3]. This screen is a long way into the menus and strangely available where it is. The first time out, you get it before the Main menu screen. After that, you gotta dig deep into the menus.
[SCREENSHOT : 3 – New Player]
Music is..umm..nice. Each screen has its own music. So, there’s always a change. The game music runs in a loop and kinda boring and noisy after sometime. You will turn it off when you have played the game about 3-4 times. The Sound is good overall. Shots fired..sound like shots fired.
GAME PLAY:
You gotta be really good at playing with the mouse and keyboard for a perfect control of the game. You can switch weapons using the scroll of the mouse and fire at the click. To aim at something, you just need to mouse the mouse. It all makes quite an interesting gaming! If you are not used to such a thing, it will take you a few lives..and..well worth it!
You needn’t train again and again for each time you run the game. It remembers it, if you have completed the levels. So, you start where you left off. Kinda kewl!
THE GAME:
For the first time out, the first level is, of course, a Training level to get you in grip with all the ways and means - getting you familiar with how to jump, shoot, hyper-jump, walk, crouch etc. There are little “?” on screen. When you approach one of these, it’ll popup tips and help info [SCREENSHOT:4]. Once you complete the Training, you can go on to play the other levels.
[SCREENSHOT : 4 – Training]
Once you complete that, you get into what is called “Zone 1-1”, where you get shot at by a “Blimpy thingy”. All you have it a knife, a small pistol and hand grenades. You get points as you put one of them “Blimpies” down. It is not that hard. Do remember, you lose health when you keep getting hit. So, use all those keys you learnt earlier and get going. Well, I used the hyper-jump a lot and did land right at the path of a bullet. Hyper-jump is kinda useful here, if, you use it wisely!
[SCREENSHOT : 5 – Shooting “Blimpies” down]
Each Zone has 4 levels. And, of course, the difficulty increases with each Zone. The game works in a progression, so you cannot get into a different zone, before you complete an earlier one. You get shot at by copters and those blimpies. You get more guns and stuff – shotguns, chain guns, rocket launchers, Bow and arrows..nope..you didn’t read that wrong! You do have a Bow and Arrows. I still am not very good at using the hand grenades, chain guns and rocket launchers are my passion though. I guess all those years of playing Doom and Quake pay off!
[SCREENSHOT : 6 – Level Selection]
One of my friends even shot down a copter with the bow and arrow! I tried with the dragger, but, didn’t succeed.
Nope, I haven’t forgotten that little bot that keeps roaming around the place during the game. It doesn’t cause any havoc. It’s a “points wagon”. You get a lot of points if you blow it up.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
The game doesn’t rely too much on Artificial Intelligence per se. It’s all set up neatly, so, objects move in a particular way and stuff. So, you wouldn’t care about AI. Moreover, you wouldn’t have the time to care about it, coz, all the while you are getting clobbered by bombs/bullets. All basic stuff have been taken care of - Collision detection, shooting etc..
VERDICT:
I won’t say that the game is relaxing. It’s a hard battle on the cards, people! You gotta be quick on the draw. It’s a long game with lots of levels. If you have a lot of time with you, it may be just the thing to get you going. It’s a nice game to take around on your laptop and play during those 2-3 hour flights. Point to note here.. make sure you carry a scroll mouse with you. I found it a bit hard to use the scroll on my laptop.
Way to go, Miniclip! :)
