GAME: Bombshell
DEVELOPER: Slipgate Studios (formerly known as Interceptor Entertainment)
PUBLISHER: 3D Realms
RELEASED: 2016
During the development of Duke Nukem Forever, the creators came up with this idea of a female counterpart to Duke Nukem. A badass chick who could hold her own against the alien forces and join forces with the king to wipe them out. The idea unfortunately ended up being scrapped due to... reasons that are frankly unknown to me, even though I could guess it had something to do with it just not fitting for the game which ended up being entirely centered on Duke, so it wouldn't make much sense to have a secondary hero character steal his thunder. But when publisher 3D Realms and developer Interceptor Entertainment (now known as Slipgate Studios following a name change after the release of this game) were working on a Duke Nukem action RPG, and ended up in a legal battle with Gearbox Software, they lost the chance to make a Duke Nukem action RPG. However, from the ashes of this legal battle arose a new chance to bring this female badass, from deep within Duke Nukem Forever's endless vaults of cut content, to the front of her own game, and finally give her a franchise of her own. The end result is Bombshell, a top down isometric shooter RPG. And here are my thoughts on it.
The 2015 reveal trailer featured an early draft of the character that left a bad taste in most people's mouths. Unfortunately I actually kinda liked it. :P |
The first thing I've really noticed about Bombshell is that it kinda takes itself seriously. The story feels like something out of a b-movie of course. The president (who is a female in this game) is kidnapped by a cyborg villain known as Doctor Jadus Heskel (totally not Doctor Proton) and a badass chick with a robot arm goes on an intergalactic trip to an alien homeworld to save her. But it's not really played up in any way that makes it self-aware or self-referencing, as most of it is taken really seriously and most of the humor is kind of tucked away in the form of one-liners and references. And this is why it feels really different from a Duke Nukem game. Because while on paper the setup feels almost like a perfect setup for a Duke Nukem game, where a Duke Nukem game wouldn't really take itself TOO seriously, Bombshell goes for a very serious tone despite the somewhat ludicrous premise. For instance, Duke Nukem Forever did take itself somewhat seriously in terms of story but it never expected the player to take it seriously and always assumed the player would be in on the joke and understand that this was never meant to be taken seriously and that it was all in good fun. Bombshell completely lacks that self-awareness and thus always expects the player to not only take the story seriously but also be invested in it. The main problem with the story though is that it's not really written well enough to draw you into it and expects a little too much from the player to be invested in it. And it lacks enough humor to really offset the amount of seriousness.
Most of the humor in Bombshell is derived from stuff like naming a weapon "Ion Maiden" (cause Iron Maiden... get it?) or "PMS" (which is basically on par with naming a town Morningwood). Or making a random NPC sound like a horrible impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's never really humor that fully lands for me and while I can get a chuckle out of a few lines here and there, I would never really call the game comedic in tone, just kind of witty at times, and it kind of makes stuff like the weapon names feel a little out of place. You thought Duke Nukem Forever had a confused tone? This game struggles to even get a confused tone, it's a straight up disconnection between what you see on screen and what the game's story is doing.
The final design of Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison pretty much nails who the character is meant to be. A serious and badass female with a robot arm and a zero bullshit tolerance. |
The detail is also extremely high and the game allows you to zoom in on the action to take in the amount of detail on the textures. Especially Shelly herself has some rather awesome texture work done on her. With everything cranked to the max the game definitely looks rather good and runs really well too with no hitches or stuttering (bear in mind I am running the game on the latest patch), and you probably won't need any high end system to truly crank up the graphics, as running everything maxed out on 1080p granted me smooth and stable performance on an AMD Phenom II 3.2GHz CPU with an AMD R9 280X GPU. I can definitely appreciate the work put into the graphics in this game, and it is by far one of my favourite aspects about it. It deserves praise when an indie game manages to look this good.
The game starts out on Earth sending you into the white house to rescue the president, which ends up taking you to the alien planet Kyrr. |
That being said, as a twin-stick shooter it is still fairly competent. The game features moving with the WASD keys and aiming with the mouse, or using dual analogue sticks on a gamepad. While I might have preferred the game being made as a first person or behind-the-shoulder third person shooter, it still plays well as what it is. The camera can be a little frustrating though as the angle can make it difficult to spot enemies approaching you (though the map mitigates this design flaw a little as it shows enemy locations as red dots). The weapons feel satisfying to use, especially if you get the right upgrades for them, such as upgrading the Maxigun to fire rockets (which feels pretty much exactly like it does in the new Doom game) or upgrading the Motherflakker (basically the game's shotgun) to fire explosive shells. It gives the weapons a whole new "oomph" and dimension and makes you feel crazy powerful. I wouldn't say there was any weapon I really didn't enjoy using with the exception of the Shellshock, which I couldn't really wrap my head around using. I mostly ended up using either the Maxigun or Motherflakker with the Ion Maiden being used for dispatching small pests and the PMS or Flamethrower being used for larger miniboss type enemies. While you can definitely tell there is some influence from Duke Nukem to these weapons, they truly end up feeling unique to the game and puts their own twist on familiar archetypes (except the Shellshock, I still have no idea what it's supposed to do lol).
The game's currency can be picked up in the form of purple orbs. At times it ends up feeling like I'm playing a strange mix between Duke Nukem and Diablo. |
The soundtrack is decent enough, if you love industrial metal. It's not really my cup of tea and most of it just ended up sounding like generic background noise to me and not really with enough synth to make it sound interesting. Just generic chugs and no real themes or memorable riffs. Andrew Hulshult is a decent musician but not a really strong songwriter in my opinion. Some stronger themes would really have helped the soundtrack come a long way as I couldn't really get into it. The main theme is repeated a few times but even that isn't really that memorable. I felt he did a much better job with his Rad Rodgers soundtrack in all honesty.
The voice acting also leaves something to be desired. While Shelly herself does an alright job, it is true she kind of lacks impact. And some of the NPC voice actors straight up sound like they recorded their lines in their bedroom. Which they probably did given how Interceptor works. For the most part it's not too distracting but at times it was pretty cringe-worthy.
Luckily the weapon sounds and general sound design is pretty good. The weapons sound beefy and loud and the ambience is also really good. I just couldn't really get behind the voice acting or music. Both sound a bit bland.
STORY: 5/10
GAMEPLAY: 8/10
GRAPHICS: 9/10
SOUND: 6/10
TOTAL SCORE: 7/10
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