Let the name of the game be all the warning you need - B.A.D. is BAD.
TL;DR - Poor game design, controls, and lackluster graphics make this 2D side-scrolling Cybernator-clone shooter a very, very uneven gaming experience; bouncing between extreme difficulty spikes and uneven balancing between level and enemy designs makes this title a hard Pass unless you are absolutely desperate for any Steam mech games and are an absolute masochist for frustrating gameplay.
Controls:
- Terrible and convoluted control scheme. You can adjust key bindings but its mostly making the best of a bad situation with the way that the weapons and movement are designed. Melee, Ranged, Artillery, and Block are all bound to separate button presses but require the weapon to be equipped and "activated" before use. The idea in and of itself isn't inherently bad but the implementation causes gameplay to suffer with the way enemy attack patterns are designed. You'll find yourself dealing with the delay of switching to a weapon to deal with an enemy that can move and attack much faster than you, and by the team you're prepared to counter melee, they'll be bouncing back and forth across the screen back to attacking you with ranged weapons. There are also far too many light platforming elements - the movement and controls are NOT designed in a way that makes these portions of the game fun or challenging and will only serve to frustrate you as the instant death mechanics force you to restart entire levels.
Graphics:
- Graphics have no consistent look or style and jump between decently pixelated mechs to very, very poorly rendered 3D environments and enemies, leading to a jarring and constantly unappealing look. Some of the pixel designs like the warships are appealing but many of the stationary enemies like turrets and walls are rendered with little to no detail and with inconsistent lighting that is visually unappealing as a whole as it feels like two separate games plastered together.
Story:
- The story is serviceable but absolutely nothing special. If you've seen any Sci-fi epic or Gundam anime series, then all the tropes in your mental checklist are present here: warring planetary factions, a rival ace and under-developed co-pilots, and extremely silly names abound (Abraxis sounds more like the name of a household cleaning solution and not the name of a mobile, evil empire's stronghold). The story is broken up through two chapters and primarily told between the briefing screens at the beginning of each mission and through onscreen radio chatter visualized like in the Ace Combat series.
Sound:
- The soundtrack is almost nonexistent and at times the music will cut out completely in the middle of a mission as if the backing track wasn't set to repeat. There's no voice acting and no distinct sound effects to break through the constant audio clutter and as such, most of the story is lost during gameplay.
Gameplay:
- Controls aside, there's not a lot to the moment to moment gameplay that makes this title engaging. Many missions are centered around "run to the far end of the small map and blow up the required mission objective" which, on paper, works well within the confines of other games in this genre. The issue B.A.D. has is that the balancing between enemies and objectives are uneven and you will likely find yourself completely out of ammo at parts where the game didn't expect you to fight the enemies that spawn in an area; which makes completing the objectives a tedious affair of Jump-Melee-Cooldown-Repeat, and this causes major issues in pacing within the levels as you're trying to balance resources against actually playing the game as intended. Unlike other games in this genre, there is no "free aim" ability and your weapon aiming is locked at specific degrees which, since enemy attack patterns are not designed around your inability to aim, ends with most missions that involve killing a certain amount of respawning mechs, jets, and helicopters being spent wildly attempting to bullet-hell their HP to zero rather than attempting to aim strategically or utilize your four weapon types intuitively.
Stability:
- On a positive note, unlike other reviewers, I did not experience any crashing during gameplay and B.A.D. does run fine on the Steam Deck with no major issues (Current Steam Deck support is listed as Unknown). Frame rate was consistent and intended functionality (Pause menu, Key Config, etc) performed as expected.
Final Thoughts:
- I bought this game on sale for far less than the $5.99 MSRP and still feel ripped off, so this is as Do Not Recommend as they come - unless Crian Soft decides to completely overhaul this game in a free update. I lean very heavily on the benefit of the doubt when it comes to games in this price range and understand the challenges that come with indie development but B.A.D. definitely needed more polish and a consistent design philosophy before being released; which is a letdown as there was definite potential that this game could have been very solid and worth the asking price. But instead we got a very ~bad~ mech game that shouldn't even be bothered with if it were a free download.
