Скорошни рецензии на Mad_Man

Some people complain that there's no innovation in the AAA games anymore, just TPP loot crafting shooters with stealth elements. Well, on the other side we have Wheels of Aurelia that is trying super hard to look like nothing else, combining a racing game with visual novel. Too bad it fails at pretty much everything it tried to do.
We're a rebelious women that doesn't need no man, a feminist (or the one that only looks like one) that picks up another chick at the disco. Both then decide to have a long ride to France along the Via Aurelia road, having all kinds of topic to talk to - abortion, kidnappings, abortion, family issues, music, feminist movements, traditional values, abortion etc. If I'm being not clear enough, the game has a statement to make, and the year of the game isn't random. It encapsulates two main events from 1978 that have taken place in Italy - Moro kidnapping and legalisation of abortion. Both of these topics will be pretty much on our tongues no matter where we'll ride or what hitchhiker we take next. No matter what you'll get 'strong independent womyn' vibe from the protagonist, Lella, that is as rebelious as annoying. Every once in a while you'll have an option to pick up a topic for conversation or your passenger will ask you a question about another topic. These can then be answered in one of two ways, and it can be summarised by 'yes', or 'sarcastic yes'. Many topics present no real input on the conversation, your answers will always be in the spirit of the defined character, later even called a communist. Opinions of your character will always be skewed in one way - someone said something controversial and you want to disgree? Nope, you can either agree or say something mildly controversial too. Question about abortion is a prominent example - you can say it's either just a medical operation or it might be a traumatic experience. Other time you can say that men are no longer needed. The whole story feels like it's been written by a raging feminist who tried to put as many leftist ideas as possible. Later in the game (as 10 minutes later) you can ditch your friend for different kind of passenger, a priest or a has-been race driver, and these conversations aren't that bad, but first couple of runs you'll probably keep Olga till the end and you'll get sick of woke comments.
That one thing that is somewhat competent are splitting ways and different outcomes. You can change your destination by turning to different road, you can pick up hitchhikers that will give you optional dialogue options and sometimes can alter your ending (or drive them to different place they wanted), you can change your passenger in the city and alter some endings by dialogue options. The gameplay is pretty solid on paper too - at one point you can run away from the police, chase a terrorists car, enter the race in supercar or just drive recklessly to piss off your friend. All of these you can ultimately lose to get different ending. Finally there are some unlocks, as changing your car in story missions will let you choose that car in new game+. My complaint here is that motives and reasons for your passengers change as well. Nothing is set in stone. If you ignore one topic long enough it'll also rub on your friend, who will now either have different story to tell or will forget about given objective. Olga for example drives with you to catch a fascist terrorist with a gun, but if you miss him she'll sell you to the paparazzi, as you've been a victim of a kidnapping two years ago, all pregnancy and abortion topics eventually being just a void blabber
Now all would be nice and dandy but the driving - essential element of racing game - is atrocious. You can turn left and right or speed up, but you can't slow down. Driving into oncoming traffic won't damage your car or other car, you'll just bounce a little. Driving into the side of the road will also bouce you a little, but your speed won't change. On another note the road is too narrow to not hit a curb here and there. Traffic on the road is another problem, as cars in front of you will drive slower than you. You're forced to overtake them but with oncoming traffic you'll be also forced into a crash. Another story is that you can even ingore all steering as your car will try to stay in the middle of the road on its own, taking nice turns on the curves. It will hit other cars and occasionally bump into the side but other than that you can ignore the driving part. I think it's a compromise between two types of gameplay mechanics - car will drive on its own for people who want to enjoy the story. Too bad anyone caring about driving physics will be annoyed, to say the least.
I'm not 100% disappointed with Wheels of Aurelia though, as it comes with a neat encyclopedia. Every time your conversation hit a specific name, event or place you'll get a new inscription explaining the meaning. These are all excerpts from Wikipedia though, so a minimal effort has been put there, yet I found these extra bits of information a true highlight of the game. Finally it's also interesting how many different events we can encounter in this game (where one full playthrough will end at 30 minutes max), from trailing someone to being chased, to driving through traffic recklessly, racing someone to win his car. Too bad all of that is locked inside this game. If you want to broaden your horizons or just drive casually through basic looking Unity game you might want to check this, otherwise you'll get offended it's being sold for money.

Cute little game about stealing stuff, with simple rules but with some gameplay hurdles. First thing that you need to know is that the game has been made by amateurs, or they didn't care too much. Examples that made me formulate this opinion
- after visiting pawn shop you'll be thrown back at the title screen
- cameras will see you through closed doors
- when busted you'll lose all your money, not only the money from current heist
- cutscenes before level starts can't be skipped, even after replaying the same level
- after successful escape the game didn't add heist money to the main pool and it stayed on the 'robbed' screen forcing me to restart the game (fortunatelly it happened only once)
- in some levels you'll see ugly 'out of bounds' areas, the train level doesn't even have the locomotive, first wagon just cuts out in the front
Under that pile of issues there is still an enjoyable game. You break into some houses, banks and what not, search cabinets, desks, bookstands or cupboards to find stealable items. Your main goal though is finding a key to the safe, opening it and escaping through the window, otherwise the level won't be 'finished'. First levels are pretty much without obstacles, you just need to rob the place before tennants show up and start actively looking for you. Not sure of the exact time but it might be somewhere around 2 minutes.
Now here's the problem with the game loop - you rob easy houses to get some money to buy equipment,
so you can start robbing harder difficulty houses. Those have the tripwires, guarding dogs and cameras installed, so you should go in prepared. If something goes south and you're caught you'll lose everything, both equipment and all the money, putting you back at the square one. Without money and equipment you're forced to repeat easy houses just to buy essential equipment. It's not helping that latter levels on easiest difficulty still can have full security set up, with cameras, dogs, tripwires and patrolling guards. Suddenly your little funny sneaky stealy game turns into hardcore madness.
That being said you STILL can finish harder levels without equipment if you exploit simple logic behind enemies movement. You can run past alarms and cameras, because they'll swarm the place you've been last seen, so any other place will be unguarded. If you trip seven different security systems, they'll go to the last one. If you hide behind a tree or in a closet while no one was looking you'll never be caught. Later levels are so big that it's better to create a diversion in one corner, hide and then run past all of the obstacles (while remembering that you still need to find the key and open the safe so you better know where to look). Finally all of the systems can be bypassed by 'sneak' button. I learnt about it pretty late, but you can move through tripwires while sneaking, without triggering it. You also can move directly under the camera without being seen too. As funny as it is, you can also kinda bypass the dogs while sneaking, although it is kinda wonky. Even chasing guards aren't that much as long as there is a corner that you can use to break their vision. You can employ a very short 'sprint' that will put you a little further away from your chasers, and with extra distance hiding behind corners will stop them from 'active' run to 'passive' search.
Overall the game is simple and pretty short, with some probems along the way and questionable design choices, but at the same time I had fun playing it. You might try it if you have a spare change and a taste for lil' cute robbery game.

This game sucks, but in a way it's nearly bad in a good way, yet it's not quite there. On paper it has a nice ingredients - two characters, combos with separate punches and kicks, aerials and a super; you have different story for each character, two levels with vehicular combat and leveling up. What's more graphics are decent, with many frames of animation. The whole thing is unfortunately put together so sloppily I'm amazed at how much work developer put into it just to leave mind-boggling bugs and is barely working as a brawler.
Hit detection is sloppy. You can be standing in front of your enemy, but if you're misaligned couple of pixels all of your hits will miss. Sometimes it feels like you're actually on the same plane and some of your punches reach your target, but then some of them will not.
Combo system is simplified, you have 4 punch combo that will end with launcher just with mashing one button, then another button will give you 4 kick combo that will knock your opponent. It doesn't matter if you're hitting your enemy though so it's possible to start your attack faster just to launch your opponent into the air with one hit, granted he approaches you at the right time. One good thing is that you can do follow-up attacks whether from ground or air, and aerials are pretty much necessary to beat this game. It's possible to launch multiple enemies with last punch, jump up to do another aerial kick combo and then, while still in the air, do a punch combo which ends with ground hit. That's the main strategy behind this game, as enemies are powerless in the air and you're pretty much immune to damage while jumping.
And damage will follow you as enemies - when they wanna hit you - will hit you. You can be in the middle of a combo hitting your enemy, but he won't stagger. It looks like he's in his "pain" state, animation playing that he's getting his ass kicked, yet you'll be sure to take some damage. Unless you jump. That's the second strategy to win, just jump all the time. Enemies aren't aggressive too much, but once in a while they have to perform their attack (and it looks like it's a static delay, if you're fighting 4 same type enemies you can be sure that order of their attacks is choreographed and order the same). Then you can jump and do aerial combo as well (it can actually continue after you've landed - it looks like you're punching floor, but enemy will get hit too). The good thing is there are many different types of enemies and they have different ways of attacking, sometimes you have to jump, other times you can just walk away from them so their attacks won't connect. There are also ranged fighters and them can hit you from completely random angle so they should be taken down first.
There are worse things from unstoppable enemies and simple combos though and that's hit detection. Sometimes I could not perform aerial attack. Sometimes my opponent would play hit animation even though my combo meter or sound effect would not play. Sometimes I'd be attacked by invisible enemy. Sometimes that invisible enemy would take more than half of my life. Sometimes a boss character would lay on the floor instead of fighting. It's a buggy mess.
What about leveling up system? It' hard to call it that way, because you're picking up money from defeated opponents and then you have to buy levels which in turn will give you higher attack power or defense. The only problem is that you can't do it during normal play. It's accessible from the main menu only, so it's not really a levelling up as a progression system, where you have to play, die, upgrade and play again.
At least graphics are nice. Surroundings are pretty but repetitive. Here's the kicker - I think that all of the sprites and backgrounds come from some editor. I can't say for sure but all of it seems a little too professional for that game, especially when we're fighting against zombies in one level. It's like the editor had all prefabs done for random games and developer didn't think twice if it works or not, just put everything together.
The funny thing is that there are pretty long cutscenes with static sprites. They tell us about story and why we're fighting against random gangs and organizations, but to be honest, no story would've been better here., especially when english translation is taken straight from google translate.
In conclusion it's bad. It's serviceable as a one dev fun project and I'm sure that's what it is. It shouldn't be sold for real money though - plenty of bugs and amateurish feel will scare most of the players, and some curious onlookers - like myself - will still be unsatisfied.

If you're desperate for some point 'n click adventure game I'd highly recommend to reconsider this title. It's long, both interesting and infuriating, feels lazy and overall left me with mixed feelings.
You're Randal, lazy kleptomaniac that's also a friend to a Matt and his bride to be Sally. The trio is in the pub drinking and having typical dumb conversations about pop culture. The opening scene is pretty long and it can already be a foreshadowing the main gripe with the game - POP CULTURE. This game is like a 8 hour long commercial break, it's like developers were yelling from top of their lungs "we're NERDS, we've been playing VIDEOGAMES too, look how much REFERENCES we've fit inside!". It comes to unbelieveable levels that every poster, painting, magazine cover is an actual reference to something. Randal has pictures of Tentacle, his drawers are filled with equipment from Zelda and he has a Polybius arcade machine. It goes further down the hole, when we visit the Comic book store, and after that we'll visit Sci-Fi Con, all with glorious nerds cosplaying as Star Wars/Star Trek/Clockwork Orange characters. I don't mind small nudges to the existing franchises, but here it's a convenient excuse to create unnecessary dialog. Pop culture references aren't only backdrop, we'll have conversations about going back in time, machines uprising, going around town with proton packs and calling Bill Murray, all in the name of mindless filler. When we strip down all of the bloat we'll remove about half of the dialogue in the couple of early episodes. I found the whole "buying into nerd culture" action annoying. To add insult to the salt, even Randal is laughing from nerds. He's not one of them, he despises comic shop owner and his roommate is portrayed as alienated NEET that's so into Star Wars he communicates only in growls. It's overdone in this game, plain and simple. The funny thing is original characters can be still funny and charismatic, but they're being covered in unnecessary references.
When we remove bloat we'll get the story of a magical ring and a curse - our protagonist is being cursed to relive the same day till the end of the world. It's not a Groundhog's Day, as any change made by the character stays. Also our best friend has unstoppable urge to kill himself with his home appliances, and all of that could've been prevented if Randal didn't steal ring from him. And then sold it. What I'm trying to convey here is that main character is a walking garbage, disfunctional, lazy, opportunistic bum that's just pain in the ass to play and listen. His voice actor additionally sounds like he's not really into acting, starting most of the sentences with "eeehh".
There are good parts though. The alterations of space-time are actually one of the genuine ideas this game has. The items gathered in one day will stay in our inventory and actions made will alter new "monday". I came to a conclusion that it's not really the same day, but Randal is being transferred to alternate realities in which previous actions have taken place already in different circumstances. For example one of early stuff that happens before the game even start, we destroy some rare catalog with a sandwitch leftovers. Next day the catalog is still destroyed but this time it was the fire. Overall it's not a tired trope and it's been used pretty good in here.
On a side note, there are many situations in which characters talk about stuff that happened. We don't see it, we just get the information about some wacky stuff. It's one of these "you had to be there to understand" stories, but it's a video game and there's no way we had that option. The thing is the more we go into the story the more that kind of stories just happened before our eyes and now the other characters have no idea what we're talking about. I actually liked that small shift in narration and I think people might even miss it.
What about puzzles? There are plenty of them, most of them will make you do rounds around the block, but I'd say most of them are within limit of a seasoned adventurer. Newcomers will find help in the guides but the game has a very good hint system. I personally got stuck on couple of occasions but it wasn't drastic enough to look for help. I was lucky enough to play Resident Evil Code Veronica not too long ago, as one of the riddles just straight up copies the solution and there is no indication how to solve it. Other gripe is that item might be already unnecessary but it'll still stay in our inventory. In some arbitrary cases combining items will create new one while "consuming" other two, other times we'll have to wait till the end of the episode (or two). It might also be frustrating to gather some items or looking around some interactivve places, only to find that none of it is necessary to solve current puzzles. I think that I've been holding some items straight 3 episodes to finally use them for something.
There aren't many locations but they get repopulated with items and people occasionally, with story we'll unlock new places, but some of old will be unaccessible. Since there's screenshot I think it's not a secret that Randal will end up in prison and that place will unlock more locations. The animations though... they look like they've been done for flash games. Default animations of Randal are ok, but any special animation, or other characters animations are pretty slow and missing frames to look nice. Other characters don't even walk - in rare situations that some character has to disappear, we'll be either dropped in other location or we'll be asked to talk to someone else in different location. At least music is decent and there's plenty of tracks (slow, grunge guitars).
TL;DR Abundance of pop culture references, unlikable hero and difficult puzzles, low production values. If you can live with that you will enjoy this title, as it'll keep you occupied for a long time and it goes for a small change during sale.

There's too much positive reviews to not call it an organized campaign. The game has been made in Unity and I bet most of the models have been lifted from the unity asset store. Game can be completed in less than 15 minutes. It has enemies that are blind and won't hit you unless you choose to not kill them and just run past them. I was hit twice in my 2 minutes long pacifist sprint to the end boss. This game has only one level and it's extremely short, it has intersection of two streets in the middle of a city and a short, pointless train road that leads to the city from the house of a protagonist. There are no health pickups, no ammo pickups, no weapon pickups, you start the game with AK47 with 700 bullets and a rocket launcher with 100 rockets and it will suffice till the end. Main boss has a shotgun and he actually can aim, but you can easily outrun him or just jump on the building. Somewhere in the 2/3rd of his lifebar you'll race his friend (that will crash on the crossroads) and after that you'll fight him again. The End. The couple of screenshots in the game present all variety that can be seen in the game, so there's really nothing to see. One ladder that can be seen isn't functional, also most of the level geometry is simplified, meaning you won't be able to enter most building. Despite that you can still get out of bounds and run to the edge of the map, or bug the game out.
I am aware that this is a meme game but even meme games should have some content. Check VCB Why CIty for comparison, also made in unity by russian devs but with at least some content. This is just lousy. I'm pretty sure it's a student's project and the dev thought that a passing grade is just enough for commercial release.

This game is an oddball. It has basic soulslike combat in 2.5 convention, one giant mansion level, deep lore and Lovecraftian overdrive. The whole game can be finished in less than two hours, but there are 4 endings and a lot of cryptic information for people that love put pieces of information together. It's not exactly a masterpiece though. Before you decide to buy it or not, you should probably know there's already a free version of this game called Shrouded in Sanity: Freebirth and it's basically the same game but without New Game+ and some additional challenges.
The beginning of the game is pretty neat - you're freshly animated corpse with a contract to sign. Either you'll complete it and regain freedom, or you'll die again. Additionally, you will have another problem which is -surprise surprise - amnesia. Turns out bodies lying 6 feet under lose their brain functions. The story of the game is being told mainly by environment - you'll walk around a manor and check various marked elements of surroundings. There are only handful of NPCs that will tell us small tidbits of information, but the whole picture - who you are, what is happening, how that happened and what is going to happen soon - is for you to piece together. You're only given the task at hand - slay the mad king. Let's just say about the elephant in the story - it's about the fish people. Well, maybe not exactly, we're not calling Cthulhu directly, but we're certainly playing a Lovecraft-inspired game. You'll run into tentacles, fish eggs and hundreds of eyeballs pretty fast, and the reason is that mad king made a bloody sacrifice to call something from "there". There're many different rooms in the mansion with fine details that present you with a lot of information. I was pleasantly surprised when every new room presented different surroundings. Sometimes you'll find a damaged bust, other time you'll find a floor full of dead bodies. The mansion is extremely detailed, and every room has its purpose. We'll visit places like the library, bell tower, even the church lays in the premises of the estate. It's possible to finish this game without visiting about half of them, and that's the correct way to create interesting levels. Optional areas with additional lore and secrets to find motivates for exploration, unfortunately we won't find anything else than some exposition. There are no weapons, bonuses, better armor, but there's cosmic horror and hidden boss so maybe it's worth it? It's also worth noting that with every death (and couple other things) your sanity level will drop. At certain level new enemies will start appearing, new dead bodies will be seen and even more surprises can be found. You'll get the unending horrors and insignificance of our existence when compared to cosmic forces too.
Let's talk about soulslike (bloodbornelike?) gameplay - it's a mixed bag. We have a strong attack, fast attack, defend, pistol shot and dodge. Every action except shooting is stamina dependant. Additionally you have set amount of health replenishments. All in all it's pretty much the same system everybody knows from From Software games. Dead enemies can be extracted from vitae, the game's currency for extra bullets and injections. Some enemies will drop occasionally Yth stones that are used for boosting your stats. These are much less varied, as we have only 3: attack, health and stamina. There's also one spot where we can exchange vitae for Yth stones. There are some minor differences in the fighting system and you can find some missteps. For example there's no way to connect quick and strong attacks in one fluent motion and there are no weapons to equip. I found defending pretty much useless as it's consuming much more stamina than roll. Pistol shots can disarm your opponent for a brief moment but it's unreliable as you need to be on the same horizontal plane as your enemy, so if you're dodging up or down, shooting will mostly miss. Unfortunately even when your enemy is disarmed you'll have a hard time to deal special damage. I still don't know how to reliably impale enemies except for spamming light attack while going diagonally through enemy. Heavy attack has a pretty long windup, but it's still the best damage dealer in the game, plus it has very big hitbox that can also hit enemies slightly above and under you. I'm pretty sure you might get to the mastery of disarming your enemies and parrying their attacks, but I found that heavy hit + dodge just works.
For what it's worth, enemies are a little disappointing. I know it takes place in a manor but most of them are just crazy maids and butlers. There's also this lady with enormous scissors that just loves to spin around and the gardener with an axe. Things might get a little juicier hovewer, as every enemy has a "true form" and when our sanity sinks low enough maids will spawn tentacles, butlers will have a giant eye in abdomen and scissor lady will levitate and try to shout us to death. I think there's interesting system that influences difficulty. Killing enemies lets you improve your skills, but when you die, the sanity of your character drops. I'm pretty sure that the enemies will get stronger even without changing into monsters and with each death of a protagonist they'll be harder to kill.
Bosses are completely different from the common enemies. With different types of attacks that also have second, more powerful version when their health drops low enough, they can be pretty tricky. I like that all knights have distinct way of fighting, either with pistols only, by multiplying themselves, by constantly parrying or attacking with AoE attacks, yet there are ways to disarm these bosses as well.
After finishing the main story we're granted with option to play a new game+, a survival game and a boss medley game. The former giving us 20 waves of enemies to beat (and a solid portion of vitae to farm should we survive), the latter giving us option to kill all bosses at once. Both of these modes can be accessed in normal game, and all health and damage upgrades carry there as well, so the more levelled our hero, the easier the encounters become. Finally there is option to play main game as one of 4 knights after unlocking them. It presents a nice change of pace but ultimately its pretty pointless, as story remains the same and we can't examine surroundings anymore, its just a novelty without bigger impact on the story.
The audiovisual presentation is a mixed bag as well. We can see a lot of details and there are countless sprites used for surroundings. Animation of characters is pretty nice, but some actions could use more frames. The biggest gripe I had was the different resolution of surroundings and GUI. The game looks like it might be designed to work on SNES, but all fonts and elements of inventory have higher resolution. The music is forgettable. We can hear mainly piano and it plays quietly, invokes melancholy, and its not exactly a soundtrack material.
The game has its problems but it shines where it matters. It might be clumsy at times and pretty short but it's strange enough to keep you interested. It's also important here that it's been made by a single dev, so I'm ready to forgive some shortcomings. You can easily check the free version and then decide if you wanna support the dev, but there are at least two other games released since and it's worth checking out, if only for some lore information.

Let's state the obvious - Blazing Chrome is a great game. It's a good Contra clone and it clearly took inspiration from Contra Hard Corps, but also Shatterhand and maybe a little from Metal Slug. It's NOT a perfect Contra clone and not ideal run'n'gun game, but it's great in its own terms. To understand what I have in mind I'll have to be pretty nitpicky. I'll go into details why it would or wouldn't interest you, and while we're at it, look at it from perspective gaming was 30 years ago. I can't give straight answer no matter how hard I'm trying to break it, because the game is awesome, yet has some quirks that might make you wanna drop it whether you're Contra fan, you were born with mouse in your right hand or you like Contra hard, which doesn't mean much today anyway.
Game looks like it's been designed for Sega MegaDrive. It has limited color palette per level and because of that it looks consistent. That also means different levels have more colors, for example first mission uses mainly shades of red and grey, but in second mission there's a lot of blue and orange. Shading is made mainly by dithering which is another Sega's highlight. Music also falls into MegaDrive tunes category as it has lots of harsh ringing and beeping in it, yet music isn't really catchy.
Gameplay consists of going right and destroying every robot that you can find. Sometimes you'll also have to go up jumping from platform to platform or kill some mutants that bleed, but main objective is to get to the end of the level and kill a boss. Occasionally you'll run into a sub boss in the middle of the level.
There will be destruction, but you should have a nice assortment of weapons. Unfortunatelly developers didn't go full speed, but rather put their money on hybrid power. You'll find 3 different weapons (grenade launcher, laser and energy whip) plus your standard machine gun. Weapons also have second fire mode, you can detonate grenade before it explodes by itself, charge laser for extra powerful shot, whereas whip can pick items away from your reach. To be honest none of these weapons give you egde over enemies. The whip is short and by holding a fire button you can move it around, but I find it too slow to be effective, it's better to stop firing, turn yourself and then resume attack in other direction than holding fire continously. Earlier grenade detonation is a liability as I'd like to shoot more than one grenade at a time, but if you do it, the first one will just detonate prematurily, often missing your target. The most useful is a laser, since when it's charged it'll blast a constant 3 second stream of light that obliterates any low level enemy and is a weapon of choice when fighting most bosses, the downside is a little too long charging time. Aiming with weapons is done in old-school way, that means there's no mouse support. You won't be able to aim wherever you want, just as in previous Contra games - 8 directions with additional button to stop you from running when aiming diagonally. I know there are people that would be very upset about that thing, progress and all, that we shouldn't be constrained by "archaic" solutions. I understand their point of view and agree to disagree, it's not a twin stick shooter, it's a retro inspired game and aiming is done properly for this type of game.
There's more than weapons though. As a support you'll get the chance to use one of three drones - one that shoots when you shoot, other gives you two extra hits and the last one that increases your speed and grants you double jump ability. On top of that you can melee attack enemies that got too close if you press attack button again. When talking about mobility you have to master probably the most important move - down+jump makes you roll on the floor with invulnerability, which is crucial when fighting against bosses.
In total there are 5 missions, 6th mission is just a final boss fight. Missions are longer than usual run'n'gun levels though, they consists of 3 to 5 separate sections, and there's one section with 3D like corridor. We'll be using motorbike in two levels, and there are optional mechs that we can ride and unleash some destruction, similiar to Metal Slug. We can't refill the healthbar of the mech and two missions offer bonuses if you can survive long enough. 3 difficulty options offer not only different amount of lives/continues but also alters a little placement of bots. On top of everything after beating a game you'll unlock two additional characters that use only short range melee attack that can be charged for longer shot. Additionally to this addition you can also unlock a mirror mode, so you'll play the levels from right to left, and a halloween mode that swaps 3 types of robots to undead sprites. As a cherry on top there's boss rush mode that lets you beat all bosses with limited continues.
The description above isn't anything special, it's still a good game and plays a little differently than other of its genre, but how does it compare to Contra? I'm going to dissect it as much as possible to get to the bottom of it. Let's say it's a Contra Hard Corps without enough Corps in it. When compared to its spiritual predecessor the game isn't all that special. From the get go, 5 missions, albeit long, aren't gonna cut the branching storyline of CHC. I still remember my awe when I could choose whether I should go for rescue mission or to chase the bad guy, and the style of it had much bigger impact on the game. Secondly, you can eventually unlock 4 character roster, but there are only two archetypes - gunner and melee fighter. CHC had 4 different characters that could be classified as 2 different gunners, 1 close range and 1 wicked double jumping robot with experimental weapons. Every character had 4 different sets of weapons, and here we have the same 3 weapons and 1 weapon only for brawlers, but we should also include helping bots as extra bonus for BC. For Contra enthusiasts a big disappointment might be lack of a most important weapon - spread gun. There is nothing that could replace it or replicate it in BC as bullets travel mainly in straight line. I guess this might be the biggest gripe when discussing which game ultimately gives the most fun. CHC has weapons like autoaiming lasers, homing missles, spread gun that can cover half the screen. Blazing Chrome has only a laser that could do that, but only after charge and it doesn't last long. There's also no panic bomb here, so no easy escape for you from tight spot. When looking at finer details I have to point out that overall speed of heroes and enemies is higher in BC. That can lead to dangerously close encounters, especially that even generic bots won't die from one bullet. What's funny, brawler types do more damage with their basic attacks. I should also point out that when enemies fire, their bullets also travel pretty fast which will also make you killed faster. I was confused for a while as I can survive Contra games easily, but here death comes much easier, even more so that jumping works different here. In any Contra game you'll turn into a small sommersaulting ball that is easy to control and lets you avoid bullets easily. Not here though. During a jump your character still is a fairly big sprite and it tends to be cumbersome during the firefights. What's interesting during the double jump your character does turn into a ball. Lastly, there's no climbing on walls/ceilings and also there's no way to descend a platform with down+jump. You will always make a roll, even in situations when there's a platform under you. In conclusion higher density of enemies with higher defences and weaker weapons on your side make this game a harder experience that CHC. What's more BC is afraid to put more in terms of gameplay. That still puts it above Contra III but below Contra Hard Corps. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great game, but it didn't take the crown from its inspiration.

I'm conflicted to say the least. The game is fast-paced, easy to control, looks great and sounds nice, but I can't recommend it to everybody. I ecommend it to SOME people, that enjoy really difficult platformers or that doesn't care much about achievements and 100% completion, but just want quality time. I feel everybody else will have a hard time with this game.
So what is it about? Two buttons, one for shooting forward, the other for shooting down. Shooting down will propel you up instead of jumping, and you can't shoot both directions. More than 120 short levels that usually consists of nothing more than a corridor filled with buzsaws, spikes, shooting towers, flying saucers shooting at you and large windmills that rotate when you shoot them. Your objective is simple - run through all of it, preferably without taking damage while collecting atomiks, this game's mcguffins. Levels have autoscroll, you can't slow down or speed up, all you can do is to control your altitude and whether you wanna shoot something or not.
Levels serve only one purpose - to have obstacles for you to overcome. They have no themes other than world you're running through. No plants, no factories, no laboratories, no mines, no background graphics that offer any kind of context, for all that you see you could just assume that world 1 is just one big sewer, world 2 runs through asteroids and level 3 is anybody's guess. All of that won't explain why there are buzzsaws scattered everywhere and most walls have short spikes.
Difficulty is a separate thing you have to understand in this game. Beginnings are easy, learning how the game works is introduced gradually and with small steps, so you shouldn't feel disoriented. That comes later. World 1 for example is a perfectly balanced example of easy beginnings leading to hard ends, all within grasp of a mortal. You learn how to play, you meet mr buzzsaw, suddenly ceiling and floors are pointy and in the end there are enemies gunning you down. World 2 is offering a twist - you have to travel beyond the bottom edge of the screen to come out on top or the other way around. It creates completely new dimension of challenge and new types of enemies force you to adapt pretty fast. World 3 though is a complete disaster. Here you have a water that, when immersed in, will reverse gravity and make you shoot up. What's more, buzzsaws will also stay afloat, bobbing happily up and down making your life harder. On top of that you'll face the worst trap - afromentioned windmill. Shooting at it will make it spin, but with each shot its momentum increases. It doesn't take much to rotate so much that you'll get clobbered from behind by one. All that creates incredible difficulty spike - in previous worlds you could shoot forward without thinking, shooting down only when in need to adjust your position. World 3 then comes in and forces you to work on your trigger finger and it will work you to the ground.
Fine, so levels get tricky after 2/3 of the game, big deal right? It is a big deal when you think about how the game treats its basic mechanic. By pressing a button you'll shoot constant stream of bullets, and there's no reliable way to control how many bullets you'll shoot. Some of the levels are so dense with action that holding a button a fraction of a second will cost your life. What's more in marathon mode the game runs at least 20% faster than normal levels. In that mode it's pretty much a coin toss if you'll hold a button apropriate amount of time, and because of that the difficulty feels unfair. You'll run through levels dozens of times and when you finally get to the end you'll feel like it was by a luck. There's no mastering of the levels, even when you finally beat one level you won't be able to beat it reliably. There's too much left to a chance to say it was your skill. BEcause of that it's not a game that you'll return to play again, but rather a game that, when finished, you'll be glad to never touch again. Any person that will try to 100% the game will get through hell and more, because you'll have to beat all levels, without being hit, and collect all atomiks. Then, when that's done, you'll have to finish marathon mode that runs faster than normal mode, still without being hit. Just one look at the leaderboards can tell you that this mode is extremely unfair, as most of the people got 0 points for completing that mode on 3rd level, meaning that they died so many times the points went into negative numbers.
The worst of it all is that the game doesn't kill you mercillesly right away. You have one shield in a level and you can usually finish levels pretty easily if you leave some atomiks behind. Third world is a pain in the ass, but with little practice you can soldier through a level by sacrificing your shield in crucial moment. Beating a game isn't a nightmare in itself, only 100% is.
Graphically the game is great. It has great pixel art and awesome lighting visuals. Soundtrack consists of 3 electrical music tracks, one per world. They're pretty good, but 3 is a little low, especially since you'll probably spend hours in one wolrd.
I had to bash this game a little but I still recommend it. I just wanted to say exactly who would enjoy it and that is difficult games freaks, people who like challenge but don't care about achievements and people that just like to die to nice colors and electrical trance music. Others maybe should just skip it.

It's just mediocre twin stick shooter with crazy amount of enemies and unbalanced gameplay. I bought it hoping for humorous title, but all jokes were already in the trailer. The story is that devil turned everybody into devilish creatures and we have to kill them all. I was kinda expecting some angry rabbits attacking people, maybe some vandalism on behalf of other creatures or something like this. Nothing like that happens, all of the enemies stand perfectly still and will only attack us when we approach them. It's not that evil in itself, animals are just protecting theirs territory. Hopefully they also have red eyes and sharp teeth so we know for sure that they're posessed.
Story aside, gameplay has good ideas and bad execution. We have basic gun attack on LMB and sword attack/bullets deflect on RMB. Deflecting isn't 100% reliable, as this movement always starts from top of our hero and goes to bottom in half-circle motion. That means we just can't instantly deflect bullets coming from below. There are many levels that just go up-down-up-down, and going down is much harder because of this.
Worry not, we also have grenades. We have unlimited amount of them, but they're tied to cooldown. What's really irritating is that when you start a level you have to wait 10 seconds before you can use it. What's even more irritating is that the cooldown is set to 10 every time you change a stage, even when entering the hidden rooms. Since our basic attack does little damage you'd like to start your onslaught with a bang, but then you'd have to wait 10 seconds till your skill can be used.
Ok, but now we have even better attack - spell that covers whole screen, that is also tied to a cooldown, but this time it clocks at 60. I'll admit that having last resort panic button with longer timer is reasonable, but many times it would just not work as intended. This attack is RNG whether it hits your targets or not. Many times it wouldn't hit enemies close to me, sometimes it would just bombard away couple of enemies on far end of the screen, leaving large amount of them unscathed.
Last idea that actually work is your companion. You can occasionally find a sidekick that can help you with fights. These can give you some modificators like attacking your enemies, healing you over time or adding effects to your bullets. SIdekicks can be found in chests and these can be found in hidden rooms or somewhere on the level. Hidden rooms are bothering me though. They're small, always have some enemies to kill and sometimes have a trap. There's no variation here, so at the end of the game I'd just skip them entirely to not waste time on them.
Now talking about bad execution, the gameplay itself is pretty bad. My biggest gripe is about how fast our heroes walk. They're always running at full speed and stop with a small delay. You'll be running into traps, enemies and bullets, or you'll be taking the game extra slow, picking enemies from afar and making small steps to not lose your cool. Charging enemies will sometimes force you to retreat and then you'll see how bad the camera and fast movement hate each other. You see, the camera is following the cursor, and that means you'll run into enemies that you just couldn't see. If you're shooting at enemies on the right and running from them to the left, you have no chance to see what are you charging into. What's more, sometimes a special, big enemy will appear after killing normal mob. At that time the camera will center on the big enemy, leaving you powerless to mob and also changing the direction of your shots.
Level design is also weak. For the most part I was convinced that levels are generated randomly, but no, they're just so uninspired. Levels consist of simple geometry and usually will take shape of a long, curved corridor to the end of the level. Only third world have some more variety, with buildings, fences and rivers that divide areas naturally and that offer something that resembles exploration. Too bad there's nothing to see.
One thing that stands out is that every world has its own protagonist, enemies and tilesets. Different heroes have different guns, bombs and spells. Only sword, or stick, stays the same. Again, third world offers the most with a shotgun and molotov cocktails that create burning trap for charging enemies.
At least enemies offer some variety. We have enemies that chase us, shoot at us, or shoot at us during a chase. We'll destroy trucks, kill terrorists and animals, we'll cut down plants and put some zombies out of their misery. Occasionally we'll get a power-up that will heal us, offer a limited invulnerability, nullify cooldown for spell or kill all enemies on screen (this time dealing set amount of damage to all creatures). I found that charging into enemies with invulnerability and cutting them down in mad rampage yields higher chance for power-ups. That way you could kill most of your enemies by running from one power-up to another, and since your running speed is so high it might be a recommended way to play this game.
At the end of the worlds are bosses. Not much can be said about them other than that they're big, chase you and shoot you with lasers. The one boss that is actually pretty good is in world 2 - three tanks that shoot at you and drop explosive barrels which in turn can be used for extra damage. It's still janky but at least boss stays in the upper part of the screen, whereas other bosses you'll just circle around to death.
What about graphics? You can see it's actually ugly. It's not 8-bit, it's not 16-bit, it's 32-bit with awful color scheme and unfitting lighting effects, with strong screen shake. Music is also pretty basic and it might actually be good, if it weren't for generic samples.
All in all an attempt has been made. Game can be finished in one sitting, but offers little variety and uneven challenge. Good ideas are hidden under misconceptions and simple game loop will tire you fast.

Isometric twin-stick shooter with occasional on-rail missions, in setting similiar to World War I and with solid portion of humour. The game is a little similiar to Cannon Fodder, but it has much more than that. I was pleasantly surprised when the game wasn't just set of levels. Here we have a fully functional camp that we'll visit between missions, buy weapons and gear, listen to chatter of other soldiers, play blackjack or check our status. It offers a nice break between missions and I was impressed that idling soldiers constantly have something new to say.
Other difference is that you have couple of maps with linear missions to progress your story, but these maps have so much more stuff to do. You can search for dozens of secrets that are hidden throughout the game and find bunkers/sunken ships/secret passages/basements that offer additional challenge and rewards, and whose completion isn't obligatory. At the beginning you can access only one battlefield, but just that one have about 5 different hidden locations for you to discover. After you finish act I you'll get access to two more maps, and even though they aren't as impressive as the first one, they still hold secrets and collectibles that are blast to find. That kind of freedom gives already more incentive to roam and explore than dozens of sandbox open-world games.
The main goal of missions though is to shoot through your enemies till you get to your objective. You will create mayhem with pistols, rifles, grenades and mines. Somewhere along the way you'll earn yourself also a companion that is controlled by AI. With every kill and successful mission you'll receive XP and gold that you'll spend on better weapons (that are basically the same, but with higher damage output), clothes (tinhats, boots and medals) and skills (pistols, rifles, grenades and health). Occasionally you'll upgrade melee damage, health bonuses or defence against explosions, but in the end the most important is your firepower, as your enemies will also get more health with story progression.
Speaking of enemies, it's a mixed bag. With enough patience you can kill most of them by simply sniping them from afar. Other enemies will run to a dead body and look around for you, but they won't see you if you're on the other side of the screen. When they see you though they'll give chase, shoot and throw grenades when you're closer. There are even headshots that take double damage or legshots that stuns your enemies for brief moment. Dead soldiers will drop money and, sometimes, health pickups and equipment.
One of the most important things though, is humour. Everything, from graphical style, through conversations, to animations and graphical gags. We'll find flying saucers over farmlands, we'll see hanging soldiers with their buttcrack visible, we'll fight against knife welding monkeys. Enemies will shout to us that they only want peace and when they're lying on the floor they'll say we can still give up. Guy selling us weapons will constantly mistake us for somebody else, and our hero will always try to say something corny. There are jokes everywhere and even though they're not comedy gold material, they'll make you interested enough to hunt for them and look around extra carefully to not miss anything.
Game has some issues though. Graphical style is specific to tell the least. I feel that shading and color selection is pretty amatourish, but I believe that it's the reason why there's so much different sprites present. Other thing is that not all sprites have been drawn in the same resolution. You can spot it pretty fast and notice that, for example, pickups have sharp contrast, whereas soldiers have been upscaled a little and cutscenes have been upscaled a lot. It's not an eyesore for the most part and overall feel of the game, with its slapstick humour, might even work better.
Major bugs? Sometimes there'd be places that I couldn't go even though my hero should fit nicely. Aiming and shooting at pickup will produce a funny comment instead of a bullet, so it might be a little troublesome when enemies are dancing around them. Grenades cannot be thrown over hedges or fences, you also cannot shoot down when standing on a roof of a building - engine of the game simply won't let you do it and interpret edge of a roof as a wall. Afromentioned AI partner will gladly follow you around, even though a tank's missile is heading towards you. He'll get shot a little too often since your successful dodge will "pull" him toward a bullet. Finally on-rail shooter sections are a bit too difficult, especially when facing a boss. Multiple enemies with a little too short time for reaction and no ability to use stored health packs can be pretty troublesome.
Still, for the amount of content and overall quality with current price it is a steal. Small issues here and there couldn't stop me from enjoying this game till the very end.