[h1]Overview:[/h1]
'[i]Annual[/i]' is a first person shooter where you play as a survivor of a space expedition that met a gruesome end after supposedly dangerous alien lifeforms started popping up everywhere. The game itself works I guess but honestly it's hard to put a finger on exactly what this game is about and what you actually do in it. You're basically thrown into a boring, empty space station that honestly looks [b]extremely[/b] unprepared for the expedition that it set off to do. Seriously there is almost nothing in it besides a few terminals that basically tells the player how to play the game. Despite the lack of story however, the game [i]does[/i] kind of have some interesting gameplay elements that is "unique" to say the least, but does it being unique mean it's good?
[h1]Gameplay:[/h1]
If you can call running around aimlessly in an empty and quite frankly barren wasteland shooting enemies that care less about your existence than your crush in the seventh grade gameplay, then I suppose this game has some form of it. Most of the game just consists of mindlessly running all over a map that is [i]way[/i] bigger than it needs to be and trying to figure out where to go. The campaign (if you can even call it that) involves the player needing to finding a few terminals that say little to nothing and then killing a gigantic spider/scorpion looking queen. That's it. 90% of the total playtime will most likely be of the player trying to find the next terminal while the last 10% is killing possibly one of the easiest bosses in video game history. But if you already know where to go to find the terminals, the game can potentially be beat in less than 10 minutes. Isn't that great?
The only thing that's even remotely interesting that '[i]Annual[/i]' has is it's weapon system. Unlike traditional weapons, the gun you're given is basically a more modern looking [i]Sten[/i] gun with different color coded ammo types that you can toggle between. Depending on what enemy you're fighting, you have to select the specific type of ammo used for that particular species. It may sound confusing but the game at least had the decency to give the player an ammo index indicating which color is good for which enemy. Unfortunately, you won't be able to tell whether or not an enemy is taking damage unless the bullet you hit them with causes them to change direction. Yeah, there's no hit marker or indicator whatsoever that suggests the bullets you're using are actually working until the enemy you're fighting finally dies. The ending is also just as laughable as the boss you have to beat in order to get it because it's just plain white text congratulating you on beating the campaign and that you can now free roam even though you were able to even before the final boss.
The overall programming and effort that went into this game was lacking already but I can at least say that the developers did something unique which was the ammo system. It still doesn't take away the fact that the game isn't good, it's far below that. But the say that it gives off a "[i]90's feel[/i]" is absolutely wrong and doesn't feel like [b]any[/b] game from the 90's and barely even feels like a first person shooter. I feel as if the developer could've scrapped 60% of the work they may have put into the game and it still would've crapped out the same quality of product.
[h1]Controls:[/h1]
Functional enough I suppose but besides the toggling between ammo types, it doesn't play very well and feels like every other bad first person shooter that's either free or costs a dollar. The controls are at least given to the player in the form of a terminal but is completely useless outside of that. If you forget how to play the game or want to check the controls again, there's no way to do so unless you want to spend the next 5 minutes running back to the space station just to open the terminal with the controls in it. There's no other settings options as the main menu only consists of a button that says "Campaign" and another that says "Quit". You can't get simpler than that. Lastly, when you're in-game, there's no way to quit the game because pressing the "Esc" key just stops the game, nothing shows up so if you want to quit out of the poor excuse of a game, you have to perform the good ol' "Alt+F4" command.
[h1]Graphics:[/h1]
Obviously not good and looks as though the developer mustered up all the free assets they could get their hands on and put together this amazing creation. The lights are overly blinding and many textures in the space station itself are stretched beyond belief and are not scaled. The world alone is empty, barren and is extremely boring to look at. Not only that but everything is loaded in at once, meaning even if you have a powerful rig, frame drops are still bound to happen because the developer doesn't know how to program a game that loads in assets when it needs to. So expect terrible performance and optimization due to novice level game designing.
[h1]Audio:[/h1]
The sound effects aren't good but at least tolerable. The music however (which only exists in the main menu thankfully) is god awful and tries it's absolute best to sound cool and hardcore by trying to destroy the player's air drums. And since there's no way to turn down or mute the music in-game, you have to either play the game with the universal volume muted or lowered. I always give games flak for not having a volume meter and only have an on or off button for audio but this game doesn't even have that which says a [b]lot[/b].
[h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1]
'[i]Annual[/i]' is a first person shooter with very little content in it. it's one of many games that gives the player barely anything to do yet throws them in a map that's so big it almost doesn't even need to exist. The story is almost nonexistent and if you know what you're doing, the game can be finished in less than 10 minutes. 80% of the map isn't used and the only thing that makes the game even remotely unique is the ammunition system the developer implemented which trust me, isn't a saving grace. There are plenty of other first person shooters that are [i]way[/i] better than this and also don't feel extremely cheaply made. Don't do yourself a disservice by playing this game. You'll most likely be running around like a mindless idiot.
