Developer: Elephant Games
Steam Release: Jun 2007
Hours Played: 3.0
Similar To: Armored Evolution / Crimsonland / Iron Fisticle / Larva Mortus
Rating: 2/5 Parsnips
If you're up for a no-nonsense, old-school, twin-stick shooter then you can do a lot worse than hand over the £2.99 for this 3-game package. You can rip through the first RIP game in around two and a half hours. Blast, shoot, kill. Gameplay is much the same in all three: a screen appears showing your fixed battleground, waves of enemies appear at the edges and slowly move towards you while you mow them down with gunfire before they overwhelm you. RIP 1 has one major difference to the others in that you are in a fixed position (usually the middle) and control a rotating turret that fires the missiles. Power-ups appear randomly which you use by hovering over the icon with the mouse. These include: bombs that destroy everything in a small radius; health replenishment; slow-mo capsules and faster or more powerful missiles. Each level lasts around 2 or 3 minutes.
In RIP 1 there are 40 levels and the action is sufficiently frenetic and absorbing. I failed various levels at the right frequency which made the gameplay challenging and allowed me to make the right strategic changes to defeat the level next time. The game gives you two different weapons which are activated with the two different mouse buttons. (Only RIP 1 allows use of the Xbox 360 controller.) There are level-ups which you activate by pressing the icon in the top left hand-corner and this allows you to upgrade such things as extra armour or extra fire power. The HUD gives all the information you need from an experience bar, health meter, ammo left, time, and number of enemies left (RIP 2 & 3). The experience is fast and absorbing and I appreciate how the sequels bring in the art of taking cover and outmanoeuvring the enemies.
All menus are stable with clicks accompanied by chunky sounds. In the first two games you can play as one of three characters (Death, Halloween and/or Rock'n'Roll) but apart from their voices there's nothing distinctive about how they play. To start a game with a new character you have to press New Game and although the progress made by the other characters is not deleted the game fails to tell you this. To create a new character in RIP 3, you have to create a new profile. It’s all quite counter-intuitive and takes a little bit of digging around. The game runs at a low resolution but as with many indie games it's not about fancy graphics. Each enemy is well-designed and has their own unique attacking mechanic. There were also well-rendered bombs, explosives and various forms of cover scattered around the screen.
RIP 1 and RIP 2 have identical ways of tracking progress and keeping stats. As you complete levels with your character they are stored and appear on a list and these then only appear alongside the character you completed that level with. For example, you cannot jump in and have a go at completing Level 14 with Halloween if Halloween has not got that far. Perhaps assigning each character with a different difficulty level (Easy, Normal and Hard) might be a useful way to keep track and supply a more rounded experience. RIP 3 on the other hand has no Level-Select screen and does not store any completed levels as a list - you are simply thrown into the next screen/level when you continue the game. Finally stats are shown at the end of completing a screen (for all games) but are irrelevant as these stats are not saved and there are no high-score charts.
The RIP trilogy is a blast. Jump in, obliterate a few waves of enemies and then jump out again when you've had enough. Levels get tough but not too tough - and it's all good. In RIP 2 I started to really enjoy the hiding and the strafing to outwit some of the enemies and in RIP 3 you do notice the movement has been tweaked for the better. Is there a difference between the characters regarding abilities? Not that I noticed. Would it have been nice to refer to high-scores or stats for each individual level? Possibly... well probably for the hardcore players at least. Nevertheless - this is a solid title overall and a snip at double or even triple the price!!
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