[h1][i]Boomer Rampage[/i] is a casual take on the precision death mazes.[/h1]
[i][b]Full disclosure:[/b] Got free through Curator Connect for review purposes.[/i]
Having recently played [i]Goro[/i] and its sequel, [i]Boomer Rampage[/i] initially stroke as awfully similar. However, it's got several advantages over its abstract cousin:
[olist]
[*]It's not ugly.
[*]Levels have a lot of variation and many routes to goal.
[*]There are lots of levels included. 90 of them, to be precise.
[/olist]
Also, you play as the remotely controlled rocket that has to assassinate a tired-looking giant slug at the end of the level. It's even priced the same: [i]Boomer Rampage[/i] just wins over [i]Goro[/i].
[h1]To kill the filthy slug[/h1]
Rocket is controlled by keyboard WASD or arrows. Unfortunately, you can't remap keys. There's no controller support presently: that would be a splendid addition.
Each level has four canisters of fuel, to be grabbed to unlock more levels as well as fill the fuel. The rocket has limited fuel before it falls. If you hit something, the rocket blows up, taking part of the level with it. Only dead-on strike will kill the boss slug though.
There's three abilities to aid the mission: slow-down, drill-thru and additional fuel. You might guess that the drill-thru is the most useful OP ability of all, and it's the one rendering the game casual instead of semi-hardcore.
The abilities can't just be spammed in practice because using them requires "star power", grabbed in the levels. It carries over, and if you use it up, it's lost even if you failed the level. But since it's literally everywhere, why not use it in a pinch?
The abilities are used with quick keys, mapped oddly to 'H', 'J' and 'K' instead of, say, '1', '2' and '3'. Sadly, they can't be remapped either.
[h1]Levels have lots of variation[/h1]
While initially nigh barren, levels quickly introduce more features. Enemies and traps like bouncing lights and falling spikes begin to appear. Of these, the chasing skull is the most menacing one.
There are locked doors and burning furnaces, bypassed with keys and switches, as well as teleporters and auto-leading pipe systems. Conveniently, when using these, the rocket stops so there's time to assess the situation and no need for precise quick-turns.
Bombs and pick-axes are used in a few levels to carve the way before starting. But each time you die you have to do the dig-work again, which sucks. Why not have a soft restart with the previous diggings done, especially since in some cases there's a clear optimal route?
Dark levels were a mixed bag for me. While kind of cool, they need trial and error to beat, and couple of them were cheap with a multitude of fire and spark traps in succession. I ended up drilling past the menace.
Dark pipe levels had too many cheap death traps - pipe leading to a dead-end and death. That's just unfair, so how's that fun?
Fortunately, despite these few qualms, most of the game was fair and decent. And you can always brute force your way with the drill if you get stuck.
[h1]Conclusions[/h1]
I managed to beat all levels in just short of 2 hours in Hard mode, although heavily exploiting the drill ability in the end. Difference of Normal and Hard modes seems to be just in the speed of the rocket.
There's just one annoying bug I noticed, that if you click 'restart' after beating the level, the level will switch to next one automatically anyway. To replay the previous one you have to do it through the level select menu instead.
Steam Leaderboards are available for score-hunters. Currently, there's not much competition though (I'm enjoying my 1st place in many levels).
[h1]For $1 game, it's a really fun game and of appropriate length too. I just wish the keys could be remapped.[/h1]
[url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9997062/]~Twistorian Curator~[/url]
