Gigantic Army

Developer: Astro Port
Released: Mar 2014
Hours Played: 2.8
Similar To: Explosionade / Satazius
Rating: 2/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY

Astro Port, those fine developers who gave us breezy and casual titles such as Satazius, Wolflame and Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser (all of whom narrowly missed out of my Top 300), are back again with another explosive romp by the name of Gigantic Army. This, rather than a decent and solid 2D shooter like those mentioned, is a side-scrolling platform shooter that has you taking command of a chunky mech. With a tense-inducing time-attack element thrown in you quickly leap, thrust and blast your way to victory through its six stages while sweeping aside equally chunky and, often, giant-sized mechs out to stop you. You're first given the choice of one of three primary weapons to start with (go with the grenade gun) along with one of three more powerful secondary weapons, with limited uses, and it's away you go.

BALANCE & PACE

An Xbox controller works well but this is not a twin-stick affair. You both move and aim with the left-stick which definitely takes getting used to. In fact, I often had to stop moving to adjust my aim which did knock me off my stride in the heat of battle a little. You fire your two weapons, put a shield up and use your jet-pack with the four coloured buttons. The game centres around finishing stages rather than high-scores and as you're given limited time to complete them it operates much like a speed-runner. Extra-time power-ups are found along the way, as is extra health and power (not that they make a huge difference) and if the time runs out you explode meaning you'll have to start the stage all over again. The gameplay experience is fluid, chunky and explosive... and most importantly, when you've got used to the controls, a lot of fun.    

PRESENTATION & DESIGN 

GA's old-school style of presentation echoes that of Satazius as does the whole vibe and feel of the game. Like Satazius there are very few menus outside of the main game and what there is, is kept basic and simple. The same colour scheme of black, green and white as if displayed on an old-fashioned monitor is used. The load-out screen, where you choose your main and special weapon, is likewise simple and straightforward encouraging a quick selection process. Similarly squidgy music is used as well to give that rushed feeling and sense of urgency. Unfortunately, annoying design decisions abound: the story always pops up and has to be skipped through; the game runs its own demo if the home-page stays dormant for 20 seconds and the only way to exit a game is to die!    

PROGRESS SYSTEM

By default, the game allows an easy or normal difficulty setting. Completing the game on normal allows hard to be unlocked and finishing hard unlocks insane. There is a high-score for each but this is only displayed at the top of the screen while playing - there are no charts. Unfortunately, with some crates giving out random 50000 points - that can dramatically boost the score, I found the score-system to be highly unbalanced. Challenging yourself to beat the six stages on the various difficulties therefore seems to be the best way to go with this game. There is a practice mode for each difficulty that allows you to tackle stages that have already been played through and hence unlocked. Interestingly, on a scale of 1-5, you can adjust your shot-power to give you a boost.   

CONCLUSION

Astro Port's games have a character all of their own. Their low hardware requirements make them excellent choices for running on low-end laptops and their solidity makes them sturdy and reliable. Their design choices though does make Gigantic Army a little rough around the edges. As well as those mentioned there is a dash ability which hardly works, an inability to drop down from ledges and... the decision to include three continues starting you from the beginning of a stage in practice mode! Nevertheless the sheer joy and fun of wreaking havoc by demolishing wave upon wave of robots, in the good ways we're given, means we can forgive them their sins.