Renegade Ops: Review

If you were following the Twin Stick Diaries, you would have seen that last week I posted a preview on Avalanche Studio’s vehicular top down shooter Renegade Ops.  The small team at Avalanche Studios have developed one of the purest arcade style video game to our home entertainment systems. They successfully balanced difficulty and gameplay making it feel like a challenging arcade game as opposed to a blatant quarter muncher.

Renegade Ops looks to bring back the classic 80’s action films with their story and gameplay. Like the title states, you play as the Renegade Ops, an anti-terrorist group who are working on taking down the evil organization known as Inferno. As I said in the preview, each of the operatives has a special set of abilities like invulnerability, disabling weapons and heavy artillery.  These special abilities are unleashed by the press of the button once your meter fills up. You can also level up your characters and earned perk points by completing quests and side quests.

Renegade Ops does feel like it is aimed toward cooperative play which is not a bad thing by any means but even on normal mode, you will die a lot and rely on your perks to get through stages. Luckily the game is fun enough to go through missions over and over again. The game is also great looking and driving through environments and flipping your car over is actually pretty fun.  This can lead to unwanted deaths though because of the lack of control on your car.  The helicopter does control very similar to the car without the flipping over but ultimately feels the same, which isn’t bad.

As I said before, the game is fun enough to go through the game more than once but their isn’t a whole lot of variety in quests and upgrades. Most of the quests are similar with different text, kill this and collect that.  Boss battles are also uninspired and you will face the same one over and over again (three times in one level!).  Going through the lush and colorful environments and seeing the beautiful explosions will also keep players driving around in their little car that could. Twin stick gamers need to pick up this game and developers who want to make twin stick games need to play them too.  It is by far the purest form of twin stick game and how they should be designed and played aside from the precise movement controls.

Score: 9/10

 

Renegade Ops: Preview

In 2011, Avalanche Studios and Sega released Renegade Ops for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. This twin stick shooter allows you to choose from a variety of different characters including Gordon Freeman from the Half Life Series (Steam Version only).  Each character has a different special ability and, from my understanding, different upgrades to use when you level up. The higher the level you get, the more slots you unlock to place perks for a total of four different perks.

Perks are unlocked as you complete objectives during missions.  Objectives in missions are given linearly on large maps but you have the option to perform side quests when they are opened up to the player.  Some of these side quests are along the way which is nice but if you have to get out of your way to perform a side quest then thats when your map awareness truly comes into play.  You are allowed to open up an overlay of the map like in the Diablo series but you are timed if you don’t find the main quest right away.

These maps are fun to explore with your tiny car of destruction.  Environments are detailed and gorgeous so even when there are long stretches of peace, its nice to enjoy the scenery and shoot up the occasional house. The shooting controls are great but the car controls can be a little off for such an intense game where every life counts.  You can go on easy mode for unlimited lives but you lose the ability to gain levels which makes that mode almost useless.

Renegade Ops also has multiple upgrades for your machine gun as well as special weapons like flamethrowers and rocket launchers.  The special weapons have limited ammo but it is easy to find pick ups to get max ammunition.  There are even perks that upgrade special weapons when you pick them up making them stronger or increased ammo. Staying alive to keep these weapons and fully upgraded machine gun really makes you feel powerful allowing you to go through multiple objectives with out losing a life.  Their are very difficult enemies like tanks that have pinpoint accuracy which make it that much more satisfying when you take them down quickly with your OP arsenal.

A few missions in, I am enjoying my time with Renegade Ops because of its over the top action and challenge. Expect a review coming up soon!

 

Meltdown Preview

Meltdown is a tactical twin stick shooter that Phenomenon Games designed as a free to play game.  Like most free to play games, Meltdown suffers from this design and forces players to repeatedly play through levels to earn perks and cash or buy lives or the hours of game time you would have played otherwise. With that being said, Meltdown for the Ouya controls great and plays great.

Since it is a tactical shooter, you rely on its lock-on system more than actually using the second stick. You can get up close to enemies and melee them to deal a good chunk of damage and melee kills provide additional experience.  After obtaining enough experience, you will gain a point that can be used to upgrade one of three trees.  The leveling up is really generic and easy to figure out.  However the perks you get are clearly seen.  Guns and melee weapons are also restricted by level but you can upgrade your current weapons with cash and upgrade points.   Enemies get progressively more challenging so it is essential to keep upgrading.  The biggest challenge of the game is the “guardian battles” where players are enclosed in a small area with constantly spawning enemies until the strong guardian enemies are defeated.  These were the only sequences when I actually died, mainly because the area is so small and filled with multiple enemies.  If it were any other twin stick game it would probably be a piece of cake but this definitely isn’t your average twin stick game. Whether that is good or bad will be up to you if you pick it up (for free.)

The cell-shaded graphics look great for the enemies and characters but the levels can get pretty bland. The levels are randomly generated which is a smart move for most games but really fails in this one.  There are so few assets in the game that it feels like you are going through the same levels over and over again.  It is so easy to see that one piece of the map was used over again but with a different textured car on it.

Overall, Meltdown is fun and a pretty balanced free to play game. It still suffers from its free to play design and randomly generated level design. I probably won’t be sticking with this one nor will I purchase the extra content.

 

Killing Floor: Calamity Preview

One thing that is great about the Ouya is that it is full of twin stick games. In fact, Ouya has its own category for these games.  That is the main reason why I keep going to this micro console for finding games to talk about.  It’s always welcome to find a hidden gem amongst the mounds of dirt that surrounds these games.  From the creators of Dwarfs!?, The Ball and Zeno Clash, Tripwire Interactive brings the Ouya Killing Floor: Calamity to the Ouya. Killing Floor: Calamity is a re-imagined, arcade version of the original Killing Floor from 2009.

Killing Floor: Calamity is a survival based twin-stick game where you choose a level and survive wave after wave of enemies. After the military cloning experiments go wrong, it is your job to kill a bunch of zombies called Zeds.  Zeds come in multiple varieties that have been seen in similar zombie games.  Some Zeds are fat and puke on you, while others can scream real loud and stun you.  The variety of enemies and the amount of Zeds on screen is pretty impressive. Boss battles are difficult but fun too.

Not only are enemies varied but weapons are too.  During waves you can pick up new guns and in between waves you can purchase new weapons and replenish armor, grenades and ammo. You can use melee weapons too but it is not an option I used often since you have to switch to your melee weapon.  Players can also roll out of the way and the cool down prevents you from doing it constantly. Different character classes have different special abilities like the ability to move faster  or place a turret.  These abilities have various cooldowns for balancing purposes which are extremely useful. Another interesting mechanic is the lock on system. Most games have this mechanic but in Killing Floor: Calamity, it slows you down sacrificing speed for precision.

Killing Floor: Calamity is one of the better looking games on the Ouya, environments look great and fit the tone for the game extremely well. Playable characters look great but the enemies are less detailed.  Their designs make up for their low-poly looks though. The voice acting is surprisingly good and the sound effects and music fit the game very well.

Killing Floor: Calamity does take some steps forwards in the twin stick genre.  The game has multiple levels and game play variety to warrant a $15 purchase but the free game still provides a lot of fun.  The full game also provides extra character classes and levels which should provide twin stick gamers a great amount of content.  You can also play two player co-op which could be a great way to spend an afternoon with a family member or friend.