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Ugh… would like a heaping serving of pointless game design matched with a bigger scoop of nonstop 80’s references? Well then you must have a hankering for…
Okay, so when I bought this game, I expected it to be a little shallow. I expected it to not be the most revolutionary mechanical masterpiece of the century filled with surprising twist after twist. Gameplay is something like a 2-D GTA, involving the theft of vehicles and the squishing of many civilians and cops under said vehicle’s wheels. What I didn’t expect it to be though was a consequence-less coagulation of never, ending, ceaseless, REFERENCES supported by weak gameplay.
The game seems to start off well, in perfect parody to any NES game from the 80’s. It’s all here, from the music, to the graphics to the menu progressions–it matches 80’s gaming perfectly. At first it seemed to promise a good return on investment of time… until you get to the actual game itself. Games from the 80’s were more than just a look and feel; they were about brutal mechanics and difficult enemies. While I certainly understand that in the name of player accessibility you would not wish to create something quite as brutal as your average 80’s NES game, I also didn’t expect to play a near challenge-less, near infinite-health adventure that feels so spastic that it would be guaranteed to grab the attention of even the most inattentive tree-dwelling park-rodent. That’s not even the worst though. The worst, as you might have gathered, are the constant bombardment of 80’s references. After I got through the first “level,” was when they swarmed in.
A Megaman II reference.
A Duck Hun Reference.
A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game reference combined with a Mario reference…
A Duck Tales reference.
It doesn’t stop there either. There’s a Frogger reference, a Sonic reference, another Sonic reference, a Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure reference, a Back to the Future reference, a Ghost Busters reference, an A-Team reference with the obligatory Mr. T reference and a Mario 2 reference. All of this happens within the span of about 10 minutes, and those were just the references that I noticed. I’m sure there were plenty that I didn’t catch or just didn’t know about. Look, references are funny from time to time and can be clever if done correctly. They’re a great way for the developer to bring attention to something that they love and presumably what their audience loves. It can be used for a quick laugh or if done subtly can make the player feel like they’re “in” on a secret joke. When they’re just shoved in the player’s face one right after another like this, it feels much less like references and much more like some mook from the 80’s waving his metaphorical genitalia in your face whilst giving you a history lesson of 80’s pop-culture.
I gave the game about 20 minutes after this to change its ways, but it just doesn’t. There’s really not much of a game here and what is present is spastic at best. It doesn’t deserve to try to make these references solely on the fact that you need to have an entertaining form of media (in this case the game itself) before you can start making them in the first place. Make sure your cake is good before you start piling on a massive amount of icing and sprinkles. Even though it does visually and audibly nail an 80’s gaming, it relies on cheap references and gimmicky subtexts that just aren’t worth a true gamer’s time–just give this one a pass.
