I have expressed the fact that the Data East game Bad Dudes is one of my favorite classic games of all time. And this game is almost like a step up from that. And it’s weird, because this game is from the same guys who made Adventurer Pets HD … and I can’t even get through the TRIAL of that particular game without just shuddering due to the fact it’s complete crap because of slow pacing and floaty controls.
But this? Now THIS is good. Take the Bad Dudes style of gameplay, add in some really impressive little combos and special moves and SCREENLOADS of enemies to deal with and you’ve got one hell of a great game to me. You play as “Barry” who apparently needs to beat the votes out of people while fighting off other political figures. The basic gameplay is the same thing as Bad Dudes in the sense that your moving to the right on a 2D plane with a lower level and upper level just beat the crap out of everything in sight. And it works well.
The game starts off with this cool dance style music with an ass shot of Barry pimping along. Then it stops to reveal him looking over his shoulder at you. Then once you start the game you find out that this game takes place in an alternate Earth in an alternate Hawaii where he got hit by a rogue meteor. After that, whenever he got angry he became “Angry Barry”. A powerful being that sought world domination, however normally it wore off after a few hours. But one day he was eating a hot dog in Central Park and he found a fingernail in his hot dog. Which pissed him off and made him Angry Barry permanently. And now he’s on a quest for total world domination. You are attacked by an army of old women who have a different idea of who should rule the world. You beat them into submission in order to attain 40,000 votes which are in the form of acorns. But for some reason after that, at least as far as I’ve gotten, they don’t matter after that. The story to this is ridiculous and hilarious and is a great addition to the game. And what I’ve typed here is just from the first level, it goes on even further than that as you go on. It’s almost like a comic book.
Graphically, the game is one of the most impressive 2D games you’ll see in the Indie Games section, and among the best you’ll see there PERIOD. And beats out a vast number of the Xbox Live Arcade games. The stages are gorgeously detailed, the characters look great. The animation is great, all the little extras like when you land the final hit of a combo are there, not to mention your charge up special move. The explosion effect of the bosses dying are awesome, and the screen FILLS with fire when you die because you’re apparently THAT bad ass. I can’t really say anything wrong about the graphics other than the fact when he picks up something that’s considerably bigger than he is (like the bus for example) he doesn’t really hold it … it floats there about 3 feet over his head … which makes for hitting enemies that are up close impossible. But that’s only a small gripe because even with all the enemies on the screen (and there are a LOT) the frame rate never stutters. Along with all that are neat little extras like his wife walking through with health in the form of a HUGE bucket of KFC, peoplep running by saying they wanna have his kids. And the bosses are awesomely detailed and appropriately huge and menacing. Top notch stuff here.
The sound is great as well. Tons of sound effects for just about everything that sound great. Great music that really adds to the personality to the game. Hell, if there were MP3s of this stuff I would definitely have it on my iPod. It’s just that good. The slam of landing a finishing hit in a combo you’ll use a lot is satisfying, the sound effect of your special attack sounds great and matches what happens on screen perfectly. He even has the end level Bad Dudes thing … but instead of “I’m bad!” you hear this proud voice say “I’m Barry!”. The presentation of this game is simply awesome.
But great graphics and sound don’t mean anything if the gameplay itself sucks. And it doesn’t, not by any stretch. You run from left to run through the levels just beating everything that moves with numerous different kinds of attacks that I won’t get into here because the game has a great tutorial to show you the basics. One of the most impressive things however is the fact that he can pick things up throughout the stages and use them as weapons. Whether it be a park bench, a trash dumpster of a friggin’ BUS or a CAR. The enemies have their own attacks, like the old ladies in the game will throw babies at you. Or the secret service guys have guns that fire off bazooka sized bullets. Great big fat hockey fans, and what looks to me to be Jehovah’s Witnesses or missionaries. The gameplay is top notch and fun as all hell.
But, there is a bad point to this otherwise excellent game. You have ONE life and NO continues. Granted, your health refills at the start of every level, but the game is entirely too unforgiving. I could understand having something like that for hard mode, but the normal game? That’s just retarded. And it’s this one stupid decision is what almost kills the game because I’ve died several times on a level where you have to defeat someone in a tank, and I finally said “to hell with it” and got tired of having to start back from the beginning. It’s irritating, I don’t see how the developers thought this was a good idea, and it really kills the game for me.
7.0 – I don’t regret the 400 points I spent on this in any way. Awesome gameplay, great graphics, great sound and (local) 2 player support. It’s a GREAT game that’s made entirely too frustrating by a stupid design decision. If the game had what it SHOULD have, like lives. Or at LEAST a continue option it would easily get an 8.5, but it doesn’t and the frustration of having to restart the entire game lowers the score considerably.
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