Story:
Our story centers on our heroine Wendy Aettridge, a pilot who is shot down while transporting a shipment of confiscated ooze. Wendy survives the crash but is doused in the mysterious goo which soaks into her blood. The weird material changes her and gives her the ability to turn into a giant. After her recovery, Wendy is sent out on missions to stop the makers of the ooze that changed her into a giant, “The Cult”, and save her fellow compatriots from the clutches of this evil organization.
Overall, the story is simple. This isn’t a bad thing as the game doesn’t really need more than what is provided. Wendy is a soldier, Wendy was exposed to a “super serum”, Wendy is now a giantess superhero ready to stop the cult that made the “goo”. The story could play out like a 1950s monster film which is light-hearted and fun, or the developer may be planning a twist with the reveal of “The Cult” in final version. I would hold opinions about this part of the game until the final release.
Gameplay:
Like its story, the gameplay is clean and simple. The game is a 2D platformer reminiscent of games like Rampage or Godzilla. With the exception that Wendy’s goal isn’t to destroy the city and ravage the lands but rescue POWs. To accomplish her goal, Wendy can punch, stomp, or throw objects to defeat the ground troops trying to stop her. In the current demo, combat with the ground troops is a bit difficult due in part to collision detect and start up animation. As an example, if a soldier is shooting you and Wendy happens to be an incline, Wendy’s stomp attack will miss because her foot collision stops right above the enemies hit box. So, one can be fighting multiple enemies and missing all of them just because the geometry isn’t squared. I ended up just jumping on most enemies as it was a much more reliable way to deal with them.
Speaking of enemies, there are three basic enemies you can encounter in the demo: foot soldiers, tanks, and planes. All of which act differently and give a nice variety to the game. Foot soldiers can be stepped one, tanks can be smashed then thrown at other enemies, and planes can be punched straight out of the air. Something I did notice during my playthrough was that enemies will spawn indefinitely. I wandered on and off the screen where two tanks spawn and try to shoot you, I smashed them and when I returned the wreckage was still there, but two more tanks had spawned in. I filled the entire board with tank wreckage in a minute or two. I don’t know if this was intentional but I can see this becoming a problem if the game loads in too many objects in the level.
The level design is something that could be improved. Currently, Wendy starts out on one side of the board and must traverse either left or right across the entire map. This is a pretty tried and true design if the goal of the level was to just reach the end and finish. Instead, the game has you pick up POWs located halfway through the level and return to the starting point before retreading the same area to get to the next camp. This type of gameplay would probably be better suited for levels in which Wendy starts near the center of the map. In this way the player doesn’t have to go over the same area multiple times to progress the level.
Overall Thoughts:
Overall, my opinion is the game has a good foundation but does require quite of bit of polish before any official release. I like the retro art style; I think the animation for Wendy is well done, and there is the possibility of a fun game loop. However, there are multiple mistakes and glitches that need to be addressed by the developer in the next release. A notable few I ran into are: turning the CRT filter on and off in the options broke the game and I had to redownload, the incline at the bottom of the pit in level one doesn’t have collision and I walked into the ground, the sound for the explosive barrels in much louder than any other sound in the game, and finally the game has multiple spelling mistakes. A personal favorite mistake was “firbombs” instead of “firebombs”, to which I hope the developer adds a Douglas Fir bombs to the game.
Jokes aside, I do think this a good game and I look forward to playing the next release of Super Sized Rescue Squad.