AddictNauts: Awesomenauts Review

Awesomnauts is the latest game from Ronimo Games. And with a name that includes “awesome” it has a lot to live up to. If it had been called “PreparedToBeDisappointedByALackOfLevels-nauts” I would of known exactly what to expect.

The game had been in development for some time and almost never seen the light of day when the publisher dtp Entertainment announced that they were struggling financially and had filed for insolvency. Since then Awesomenauts has been fortunate enough to not only release the game but announce the first batch of DLC for the game.

The story is set at the beginning of the game with the news that the galaxy is at war with itself. The rivalling sides are locked in a stalemate with no victory in sight. This deadlock has lead to both sides recruiting some of the galaxies most notorious and deadly mercenaries in a bid to sway the outcome. “Who are these deadly mercenaries?” you ask, the Awesomenauts that’s who.

With a charming cartoony background and player art each level has a vibrant and almost childish appeal to it. Some levels have giant worms that remind the player of Star Wars and the worms from Dune where other can be described as the most cuddly cyclops monsters ever. The characters all look fantastic too. There has never been such a cool motley crew; jetpacking monkeys, killer robots, brains in a jar and many more are all thrown into the maelstrom and everyone is as fun to play as they look.

Awesomenauts has a unique set of mechanics, it has several different elements from games like League of Legends and those of the same MoBA ilk. Although the gameplay may be similar as LoL it is by no means as complex. Every character can deal devastating damage if levelled correctly and any combination of miscreants can be wielded efficiently given the right team mates. The main aim of the game is to advance towards your enemies supplies as you slowly tear through your opponents defences, in between advancing on your opponent's defences you are confronted by turrets and whatever worthless peons they can toss at you. There are some different enemies in specific levels but once you learn how to level quickly you may avoid these completely, unless you need a quick burst of money to push for the next upgrade.

A unique mechanic that makes Awesomenauts stand out from the crowd is the way in which you enter the battlefield. Upon entry your character drops from the skies in a flaming drop pod collecting resources as they hurtle towards the battlefield. This can be extremely effective as you might have died just short of an upgrade and that little boost you get from entering the battlefield occasionally boosts your resources that little bit.

When all is said and done Awesomenauts just falls short of its name. With some great game mechanics and really interesting character design you will lose countless hours to tense matches but on the whole the experience feels empty and you will slowly be ground down by the lack of levels. With the news of DLC being developed and the possibility of more to come the game will hopefully see a lot of growth over the coming months.

8 rocket monkeys out of 10.

Some Girl on Girl Action (And No Not That Kind)

This startlingly beautiful game is the first to be made by Reverge Labs and is the culmination of almost a decade's worth of work. Skullgirls is the first game to be produced by Mike Z and it has gained fame amongst the fighting game community as being the game designed by the community for the community. And with a tagline like that who can resist?

The story starts with the arrival of the Skull Heart in Canopy City. This heart possesses the power to grant any woman/girl a wish. It almost sounds like a fairytale but with every fairy tale there comes a catch and this one is a biggy. Although the skull heart can grant any of their wishes they wishee must be pure of heart, if not they are consumed by the power it holds and become a skullgirls destined to torment humanity. As with every fighter each character has their own needs and wants for the artifact, some wish to destroy it and others want to abuse its power but they all inevitably end up at the same point face to face with the current skullgirl.

With mountains of experience behind him Mike z has taken the best ideas from across all different types of fighting games. There is your standard 6-button layout with light,medium and heavy punches and kicks as well as an intricate tag system. The game also boasts the very ingenuitive variable tag battle in which the is no restrictions on either side meaning that a single character can face off against a team of 3, this would seem that one sided might be slightly disadvantaged having less characters but the game allows this team of one to have more power and health whereas the team of 3 could have a lot more variety for different situations. There is also the infinite prevention system that prevents the player from discovering an abusable loop and puts the player in a position where they can develop their own combos with different ways around them.

The game places itself in amongst the masses of different types of fighting games perfectly drawing inspiration from BlazBlue, Marvel vs Capcom and Streetfighter and you can see in the mechanics alone that there has been a lot of love and care put into the game to make a truly fun experience.

With so much time and effort being used to create an in depth system to the game, naturally it would need some form of explanation to how everything works and so far Skullgirls has taken the prize on introducing new players to the true basics of fighting games. What a player would usually learn from peers or trial and error is laid out in front of the explaining terms they are unfamiliar with or they are given the true meaning behind the term. Each stage places the player in situations where the intuitively build upon skills to deal with more complex strategies and understand why they do what they do as well as a good reason behind it. This is something that has never really been tackled before within a training mode, or at least not as in depth and it is nice to see it done so well.

As with any fighting game there is a story mode an arcade mode and a local versus. Unfortunately it is within the single player aspect that the games faults rise to the surface. The story lines are short and have very little deviation from a set list of fights, although the world in which the game is set is vibrant and bursting with character the short cutscenes struggle to convey such an awesome atmosphere.

What really sets SkullGirls apart from the majority of modern fighting games is the hand drawn art, other games do have bragging rights in this area but none of which breathe the same character into the world or its inhabitants in quite the same way. Each level has a vibrant colour scheme and compliments the madness that surrounds the fights. This art style is another testament to Mike Z’s involvement with fighting games from an early age and you can see where 2D art and BlazBlue have influenced the game. I think it is best left to see the art in action and with no palette swaps or “redux” levels in sight and some truly inspiring design the art style will leave you begging for more.

With a cast of 8 characters many would be quick to judge the game on its lack of variety. And for those of you who do embody this sentiment, shame on you. The 8 characters present are nothing like you expect from a fighting games, with no; multi coloured ninjas with slightly differed moves, palette swapped american rivals or duplicated move sets SkullGirls’ cast is something else. Each character has their own quirky puns and pays homage to other famous games, attacks and characters. Another point of interest is that even with an all female cast each of the characters have their own style, story and even bra size all laid out on skullgirls.com. If you don’t like the look of the big breasted nurse then maybe the more sinister shape shifting nun will take your fancy but you will be hard pressed not to find a character that doesn’t stir up some curiosity inside of you.

As a massive fan of the game and genre I have got more bang for my buck from Skullgirls in the past week than some more high profile fighting games released in the past year and with a price tag of 1,200 MSP to boot you will struggle to justify not buying the game too.And if you are really interested in a larger roster it has already been announced that there will be more characters and stories added to the universe throughout the year. In short with characters as unique as the art style you will struggle to pull yourself away from this punchtastic slugfest.