I didn't pay a lot for this game. In fact, if I recall correctly, Groupies offered it as an extra game if one of its bundles sold enough. But one of the big reasons I bought into that bundle was that I hoped to get this game, because I like twin stick shooters and it looked cool. I had no delusions that it would be something fantastic, but it isn't that hard to make a twin stick shooter that's fun to play.
To start, the game is trying to be like Broforce. I mean, it's a different genre and a different kind of game, but it's trying for a similar ambiance and a similar sense of humor. The humor here, for the most part, just falls flat. It's juvenile and stupid, which I would expect, but also completely unaware of how juvenile and stupid it is. There's a level that has you go into a military shower called don't drop the soap. There's something about Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump (both playable characters) being a couple. There's a lot of gay jokes for a game that was released in 2016, and they're not even original or funny.
The humor also isn't intertwined into the game very well, it's just there, and a lot of times it comes down to "look at how random we're being." I mean, Santa Claus is a playable character. How does this fit into the theme of hyper-masculine army men blowing crap up? It doesn't. What special powers or cool abilities does Santa have? He doesn't. The game just lets you play as Santa Claus. With a gun! Isn't that so funny and random. Santa Claus. Shooting people.
Humor aside, the gameplay isn't very good either. I really got the feeling that this game didn't know what it wants to be. You start out running through the level, and there's so many shots and explosions you can barely tell what's happening, and you can free POWs and then they fight alongside you, which is cool, and adds to the carnage. And that's great. But if you just run in and start shooting the crap out of everything, you die.
You really want to approach the levels with a bit of strategy. Sneak around a bit, and slowly activiate enemies so that you can keep track of what's going on. But the game doesn't really have any stealth mechanics, and it isn't really built for this more intelligent play style, it's gameplay is designed for a game that's about blowing crap up.
And then there's the POWs. They don't die when you accidentally shoot them like in most games, which is good for a game that's about shooting everything and blowing stuff up, but takes away any strategy involved in rescuing POWs. They'll also probably hinder you because if you get a few there will be too much stuff on screen to really tell what's going on. You also kind of control everyone, which is difficult, and made worse by the fact that if your main guy dies, you die, even if there are POWs still alive. In some ways its made like a game where you control a unit of guys, in some ways its not. In some ways it's about rescuing POWs, in some ways its not.
There are also escort missions, and the way to play those is to leave the person behind and clear the level and then come back for them. Why? Because as hard as it can be to keep your main guy alive, it's so much more difficult to keep a specific POW you're supposed to escort alive. Keep in mind you're controlling this person and your main person and any other guys you've rescued with the same control pad and they all have to do the same thing and dodge bullets and also mines.
There's a lot of guys to choose from, but besides some different starting stats, there's not really much difference between them. They don't have different guns or powerups or special abilities. You can level up your guys and increase their stats, but it's pretty basic, and just makes all of the characters play the same. I'm also sure some stats are better than others, though I didn't play long enough to figure out which. For instance there's a stat for hp and a stat for armor, and I'm sure one is preferable to the other. Same with there being a stat for damage and a stat for attack speed. One of those stats is going to give me more damage per second than the other.
Ultimately this is a game that doesn't know what kind of game it wants to be and what it wants the player to do. But at the same time its not trying to be everything to everyone either. It doesn't seem to understand that there are different ways to design a game, and different creators will focus on different parts because that's the kind of game they want to make.
And if the game is broken down to its bare bones, it's flawed, it's repetitive, and it doesn't really offer much. It even fails as a dumb twin-stick shooter to pass some time.
