This game plays a lot like Contra, minus the bullet hell of course. Although maybe it changes later in the game (I’ve managed to get to stage 83 so far). It’s a simple single screen puzzle/action type of game. To open the door to get to the next level, you kill all the enemies. And it’s definitely fun …. in short bursts.
There are 100 levels, with 2 player co-op or a 4 player mode (neither of which I’ve actually tried because the game doesn’t have Xbox Live support and that’s really the only time I play multiplayer). You run, jump, shoot and collect various things to make your score higher. And it does have a save option, thankfully given the fact there are so many levels. But it’s a little strange in the fact that you reach a save point every 10 levels. There are different difficulty levels that make the enemies harder to kill and whatnot. But in the end, if you do what I unfortunately did with it and play it more than about 10 or 15 minutes at a time, the repetitiveness starts showing. I wish I could turn back the clock and just play this for a few minutes at a time.
Graphically, it’s pretty good. Great animation on your character, even if the in game guys you play as look a little too cutesy for my tastes. But the enemies have either very little or no animation whatsoever. But the sheer variety more than makes up for that. You’ve got little green dudes that come out of Gauntlet style generators, ghosts, sharks, guys who just stand there and do nothing but shoot and a whole host of others. And with the annoying one hit kill for your character (good Lord, I’d hoped that idea died with the 16 bit era), they do pose a very real threat. The stages look great with various destructable walls, lava pits, spikes. The bosses that I’ve encountered so far are huge, menacing and look great. Though they’re the typical arcade style sidescroller bosses, and once you learn their patterns they’re just a pushover. My personal favorite is the giant snake. Overall, the game looks great though. A bit too cutesy for my tastes, but hey. They work.
The sound is appropriate, though a little thin. You have your shot sounds, which all the different types of guns sound exactly the same. The sound your character makes when he dies. A sound that lets you know the door to the next level is open. And if there’s more …. they’re not particularly memorable. The music however is mixed with great sounding rock music and 16 bit style stuff that comes up when you beat a level. So no complaints there because it’s my kind of music.
The gameplayer is the same basic concept throughout each level. Kill all the enemies and collect powerups to either make your default gun stronger, or different weapons … though the different weapons (with the exception of the tri-shot) are completely worthless and not even worse wasting your time with. There are other powerups such as ones that let you jump higher, move faster, get more shots on the screen, etc etc. But when you die you lose them all. The level design, for the most part, is pretty damned good and really interseting sometimes. It does a good job of mixing in enemy placement with various hazards. There are a few levels that use this idea more as a crutch than anything else … but those are few and far between.
It controls beautifully since the update (there’s a version 1.5 out as of this writing which fixes a lot of the annoying issues the game had before). And it pretty simple. The A button jumps, and the X button fires you weapon (or the right trigger which is what I prefer to use). You don’t need anything else with this game. It’s not too overly difficult, which is a bit of a disappointment. Even in the higher levels, most people won’t have any issues getting through them. The main reason I stopped playing when I did is just from getting bored. But that’s mainly because I was an idiot and chose to play through 60 levels all at once. Yeah, the higher difficulty levels makes the enemies harder, but it doesn’t add any kind of real challenge. It just makes it immensely more frustrating. I’ve since decided just to play through the rest of the game about 10 levels at a time, or until I get tired of it.
7.0 – It’s definitely a great game, and I’d imagine it’d be tons of fun multiplayer. But without Xbox Live support, I don’t care. I never play my 360 multiplayer locally, so local multiplayer is completely useless to me. There is a Battle Mode, but obviously I haven’t tried it. As long as you don’t play it for God knows how long all at once, it’s a blast. It’s not perfect, and the one hit kills are just irritating. But it’s definitely worth the 400 points. Especially if you’re the type who plays their system locally with other people … which I can’t imagine anyone with Xbox Live Gold wanting to do by choice. But that’s just me.
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#1 by Kris on October 1, 2009 - 9:12 am
Thanks for the review! Glad you liked me game, despite some boredness after progressively playing levels. The game is a ton of fun with another person but unfortunately its local only. One of my two upcoming games will feature Live Online play and if that isn’t too rough to setup, I may go back and put that in Nasty.
The big the reason I didn’t put it in in the first place was that XBLIGs w/ Live play so far just don’t seem to have players playing. I didn’t want to spend a whole bunch of time adding a feature that simply would not be used.
#2 by Mike on May 3, 2010 - 1:39 am
Nice review, very thorough! I made mention of the game in my blog as well (got on an indie kick for the first time last week). I thought the game was much better than a 7 out of 10, but at the time it was only 80 MS points so I can understand that difference in opinion.
#3 by Dhalamar on May 3, 2010 - 1:42 am
@Mike It’s a great game, just not great when you play it like I did in one HUGE chunk. lol