XBLIG Review - Night of Doom
This could have easily been done as a dual stick shooter, but they are a dime a dozen. This is an extremely simple game. Go into one of the three levels, and survive for 10 minutes. That's it.
There are no weapon upgrades, no multiplayer (unfortunately). The only item pickups you get are grenades, health and a timer that knocks 30 seconds off the time needed to survive, which definitely comes in handy on the harder the difficulties.
Night of Doom is almost comically bad. I'll say that right off the bat. It's made by the same developer who made Roid Riot, which is an Xbox Live enabled space shooter. It would have been cool as hell to see a Live enabled multiplayer mode in this game, just because it's so simplistic. Make it like a poor man's Left 4 Dead. :) The only real reason I say it's "comically bad" is because you do one thing, and that one thing is actually kind of fun. You shoot down the bad guys. Read on though. It gets better.
The graphics are very simple. There are 3 levels, each with their own unique enemy type. Level one is a graveyard (with no gravestones to be seen) and is a very large open environment. Zombies come up out of the ground both big and small and start wandering around, occasionally chasing after you. When you kill them, they disappear in a cloud of green. Which is the same way ALL the enemies die. Level 2 is called Aztec, where you're hounded by ... I guess they're cultists who want a sacrifice. And level 3 is a pirate ship, which differentiates itself from the other levels by not having any walls ... so you CAN fall off the side of the ship and die if you're not careful. And it has a huge wooden thing in the middle. And the enemies for that are supposed to be pirates, but they look more like huge hulking pissed off black guys that talk like a stereotypical pirate to me. But there is no animation. Anywhere. The enemies just kinda float across the ground, when they hit you your controller vibrates and that's the only indication you have that you just got hit. The weapon shots, it looks like you're shooting stakes or something. You can't see the weapon, so you never know. The grenade explosions look pretty good though. Overall, even though the graphics are pretty simple, and the frame rate is just BARELY dodgy at times, they're passable considering it costs 80 space bucks. I think it should have been an option to have the enemies explode in a cloud of green, I would much rather have preferred blood.
The sound and music are pretty good though, the title screen music is decent ... decent enough I wish I had it on my iPod. The fired shots sound okay, the grenade's explosion sounds good. The voice samples get a little repetitive after a little bit, and they sound kind of grainy. But they do add a little to an otherwise simple game. And oftentimes are just hilarious. Though it is a little creepy to hear the little kid singing and laughing.
The control is just fine, and typical of just about any first person shooter. You use the analog sticks to move around, the right trigger to fire and the right bumper to lob a grenade. I would have preferred it on the left trigger personally, but that's me. And the grenade throwing actually works pretty good with it usually going where you want it and killing just about every enemy within it's radius.
If I could fault the game for anything, it'd be that it's a little TOO simplistic. It would have been nice to have animation in .. well .. anything. And more game modes would have been nice. And the enemies take away WAY too much health when they hit you, which makes the "Insane" difficulty aptly named. And considering it's a first person shooter, a minimap or radar of some kind showing where the enemies are would have helped a lot, because a lot of the time on the high difficulties, strafing is useless because you'll end up strafing straight into an enemy and find almost your entire health bar depleted. And obviously different weapons than just a stake shooter and grenades, and score keeping of any kind would have been great and added a LOT to the game.
6.5/10 - For what it is, it's not half bad. It's surprisingly fun shooting cardboard cutouts that move. But considering the guy made Roid Riot, this game could have been a lot more than what it is. Granted, I've only ever played the trial of Roid Riot, but the graphics are decent and it plays just fine. Multiplayer and more levels would have done a lot for this game.
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December 19th, 2009 - 15:01
Here’s a Cheat for the game :)
Jetpack mode:
On the main menu hold X + Y + the left trigger, you’ll hear a zombie noise.
You can now use the left trigger to activate the jetpack :D