Okay,
so this punk-ass tries to cave in your skull - crack - but you're,
like, too badass to die, so you break out a shotgun and point it
right between the poor mofo's eyes, and you're like, "Yeah,
bitch, you think it's that easy to - "
Whoa.
Sorry. I've just been in a really gung-ho mood ever since I read
Heavy Metal Thunder. Let me take a minute to calm down...
Okay,
so this time around I'm talking about Kyle
B. Stiff's Heavy Metal
Thunder. It's the second app from Barcelona-based Cubus
Games. Their first release, The
Sinister Fairground, was in a comedy-horror vein. And it was
excellent (read my review of it here).
This time around, they've gone sci-fi.
And
what great sci-fi it is. You take the role of a member of the Black
Lance Legion of elite jetpack soldiers, humanity's first and only
line of defence against the nebulous extraterrestrial Invaders. You
play Mr Wiggles (the name isn't permanent), a wounded amnesiac who
struggles to recover his memory, and to return to his home before the
Invaders can destroy it. It's grim stuff - what small pockets of
humanity remain are on the run; you aren't fighting for victory, but
for revenge.
Throughout,
there's very much a theme that only the strongest can survive - and
as Mr Wiggles strives to do just that, the story presents some
probing choices weighing mercy against practicality. Will you kick a
man off your spaceship so that you have more food for yourself? Or
will you welcome him on board, even though he doesn't seem to have
any useful skills? And there's a dark undercurrent that hints that
you've been somehow 'programmed' to feel a certain aggressivity in
specific situations. That's just begging for more development in
sequels to come.
There
are some lovely, original touches throughout the story - without
being too spoilery, my own favourite would be the long-haul flight
through space wearing only a little short-range jetpack, and towing a
huge net of food and supplies behind you. Excellent stuff. Or, for
instance, a section in which another jetpack soldier's radio is
broken out in the vacuum of space, so you have to touch your helmet
against his in order for them to convey sound. There are a bunch of
fantastic little details like that. Of course, you should expect some
pseudoscience with your sci-fi, and the pseudoscience here is well
thought out, and credible - the 'fat mass' generators that create
gravity aboard spaceships, for example. Kudos to Mr Stiff for that (that must be a
fake name...).
Okay,
a few technical points. Game mechanics: stats are a bit D&D-esque
(Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Will, Charisma, as well as Zero-G
Combat and 1-G Combat), but alongside that you can also learn a bunch
of skills (Jetpack, Computers, Xenobiology, Piloting etc.). You gain
experience as you go along, and level up, allowing you to increase
stats and pick new skills. And it's all pretty well balanced; as with
a lot of good RPG systems, you often find yourself just a little
short of the next level up, and craving more Exp, more Exp, more
Exp... Combat and skill/stat tests require you to roll virtual dice -
and, while I'm not a big fan of dice-rolling in apps, these are some
pretty funky digital dice. Also, just like in The Sinister
Fairground, you gain Hero points as you go along, which allow you to
retry, or automatically succeed in, failed tests. Unusually for a
gamebook (and this is adapted from the
Heavy Metal Thunder gamebook), the story is dialogue-heavy, and
each 'page' is usually quite long. Me, I quite like that, and I
suspect that Cubus have intentionally tried to do away with a lot of
redundant screen-tapping. The artwork is good, overall - the pictures
of spaceships, or planets, or machinery, are beautiful; the pictures
of people are a mixed bag. And the game motor looks great, and is
simple to use - it's another step up from The Sinister Fairground, in
fact.
Does
the game have any bad points? Not so many. As I hinted at above,
sometimes the tone of the narrative and dialogue is just
suuuuuper-macho, and it gets a bit tiring. And there are a few too
many T-junction choices for my taste. Also, I felt a bit frustrated
that a certain key plot thread regarding Wiggles' amnesia seemed to
go unresolved. Maybe that's just the way I played the game, though.
Maybe I did something wrong; only future playthroughs will tell.
So,
overall verdict: great, great, great. Even better than The Sinister
Fairground, which was brilliant. Cubus are really starting to
establish themselves as makers of awesome interactive fiction apps.
Congrats to them, and to the spuriously-named Kyle B. Stiff for
writing such a great story.
Trivia
of the day: 'Heavy Metal Thunder'? Also an
album by Saxon.
(Review
by Paul Gresty)
Thanks Paul for such a great and deep review!
ReplyDeleteAlso a lyric in "Born to be Wild".
ReplyDelete