Bio Menace

God please bring me back to 2000 when i first found this game on my uncles pc, where i didnt have to get job or master degree or marriage, spent all my time on games. No economic crisis, no virus, no wars, but a kids gaming summer.

Snake Logan! Now this Chicago native knows how to get the job done!

3/10

Forget James Bond.. Forget Commander Keen.. Compared to this they're just wimps. This is the real deal. In 'Bio Menace', you play as a CIA operative called Snake Logan, who is ordered to fly a plane into Metro City (*Cough* Escape From New York *Cough*) in order to stop an evil scheme by the fiendish Dr. Mangle. Unfortunately, Snake’s plane is shot down, forcing him to walk the streets and kill mutants. Dr. Mangle formerly worked with the US government on an secret project called Operation Bug Glow, which was a series of experiments aimed at enlarging various insects for unknown reasons. However, Dr. Mangle spliced some very violent genes into the mix and has used his newly-created army of evil mutants to take over Metro city. Playing this game reminds me of when I played the Commander Keen games – the start-up screen, in-game menus, and even the same sort of gameplay where you run to the other side of the stage, possibly finding crystal shards and using them to unlock barriers. The gameplay is, as you would expect, classic action platformer gameplay. You have to explore non-linear levels, fight monsters and find keys in order to progress. The enemies are clever and require more than one shot to destroy. There are much tougher enemies you encounter in the later stages, and these also go for hazards. Like most of Apogee’s games, 'Bio Menace' is split up into three individual episodes – so you basically get 'three games for the price of one'.

Duke Nukem, but less good. Joystick config broke my gamepad shoot button config. Interesting link between fixed key games and configurable ones, as WASD works, but there are extra directions that appear to be unused, and the space key is fixed to a status screen so jumping needs / or somesuch. PageUp/PageDown are fixed to scrolling up/down, and also undocumented. I haven't found a way to switch between grenades and mines, but maybe weapons reset between levels. Background music quickly gets annoying but can be turned off in favor of Spotify.

I'm sure that was good, once.