I went into this with an open mind, knowing that it looked very mobile-esque. I enjoyed a very small portion of the time I spent with the game, and have no reason to ever go back to it.
The gameplay itself is surprisingly satisfying at first; gyro aim (or analog stick if you prefer) at enemies' heads and pew pew away. Just as it says in the game description, you aim and shoot and that'sI went into this with an open mind, knowing that it looked very mobile-esque. I enjoyed a very small portion of the time I spent with the game, and have no reason to ever go back to it.
The gameplay itself is surprisingly satisfying at first; gyro aim (or analog stick if you prefer) at enemies' heads and pew pew away. Just as it says in the game description, you aim and shoot and that's it. Once enemies are alerted, they all take aim at you as well. You have to take them all out before they take you out, but it's not as challenging as it sounds since most enemies have stormtrooper-level aim. The only time I died was on mission 380-something where 6 guys and a helicopter are shooting at you at the same time. Some enemies will run toward an escape point when alerted, and if they stand there long enough you fail the mission. If you think "oh, I'll just disable the vehicle near the escape point"... nope. You still fail the mission, because somehow the guy still escapes in the car that just exploded.
As you go through the levels, you get keys. When you get 2 keys, you are able to choose 2 suitcases out of 6, to get either a gun part, or money, or gems. At very rare intervals, you also kill a guy with a cellphone. This lets you spend gems or money to buy Rail Gun parts. The ratio of cost:parts don't make sense - for example you might have a choice of +6 parts for $5k, +10 parts for $15k, or +24 parts for $130k. There's no rhyme or reason to the conversions. It's clear the 6 for $5k is the only bargain worth taking.
I don't know specifically how long it took me to save up $10k, but most levels give you $40-100 as a level reward, and +$10 bonus per headshot. A good number of the levels have 2-4 enemies. You can do that math yourself, if you want, to figure out how long it would take to reach $130k from naturally playing the game and hitting a headshot every time.
Likewise with the gems... the gem prices for Rail Gun parts range from double digits to 5 digits, but you get at most 5 gems in a level, and 10 gems from a keyed suitcase if you're lucky. Keeping in mind the suitcases only appear every so often, saving up 15k gems would essentially be a colossal waste of time.
This is where I believe the game was ultimately designed toward mobile & microtransactions -- the only possible way I can see of obtaining $130k or 15k gems is buying it with real money. Otherwise you essentially have no life. Even at a generous $100 a mission, that's still 1300 missions, with the same 20-30 level layouts over and over again.
I got through about 100 missions before it became boring repetition. The extreme weak point of the game is this limited number of unique level layouts, compared to the number of missions you need to complete in order to unlock everything; not to mention the general lack of needing to unlock anything in the first place. I eventually forced myself through 400 missions and I still hadn't been able to afford half the parts needed for the Rail Gun.
But the basic sniper rifle one-shots just about every enemy (except bosses) if you headshot them, which is very easy. I don't know what purpose the Rail Gun actually serves, nor can I understand why I should dump enough time into unlocking it, nor why it's such a rare event to be able to buy its parts.
Once you've maxed the sniper rifle, the upgrade screen still appears even though there's nothing left to upgrade. Along with the aforementioned exorbitant costs, it screams "we didn't actually test this far into the game", in my opinion.
You quickly start seeing the same levels repeat. I don't mean the same landscapes, or the same buildings... I mean exactly the same layout, down to the enemy positions and when enemies are triggered to spawn. 2 guys behind bushes. 3 guys on a crane. 3 guys on top of a building with 3 barrels underneath them. 1 guy on a docked boat, with 2 more guys spawning when you kill him. 1 guy on a balcony, and 2 more spawn on the roof when you kill him. 1 enemy walking near a civilian.
Some levels are basically pulse checks. The one I mentioned with the explosive barrels, you shoot one of the barrels and insta-win the mission -- absolutely no skill or risk involved. 1 shot, 3 kills.
They could have at least randomized the levels and enemy configurations to keep it fresh, but instead it's a repetitive borefest with no apparent end-goal except "keep headshotting the same guys over and over again".
Which brings me to the music... there's so much royalty-free music out there that it's absolutely unforgivable to use the same 20-30 second loop of music over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. FFS, at least go browse Kevin Macleod's repertoire and download a dozen of his songs just to change it up now and again.… Expand
Johnny Trigger: SniperYour Score0 out of 10User Score
