Dead End Job

Review

Ladies and Gents, let me introduce you to the best supernatural hunter you’ll never meet; I’m not sure if he is a good person to meet if you are a ghost, but nonetheless, here is Hector Plasm - the one and only Super Ghost Hunter! The only person to show him the ropes in this industry of ghost hunting, Beryl, has unfortunately passed away from something stuck in her throat (no, it wasn’t a pretzel, unlike ex-President George W Bush’s close encounter).  So, the bad news is . . . well, she’s dead. But the good news is . . . she is back as a ghost! (Is that good news?) Anyway, Hector has 30 days to save Beryl’s soul, and for that he needs to complete as many jobs as possible and earn an exorbitant amount of money in order to pay the engineer, Louise, to build a machine that will get to the ghost’s dimensional world. I think I got . . . a dead end job!

Dead End Job is a Top down Shooter/Action game developed by Ant Workshop Ltd and published by Headup on the 14 of December 2019 on Steam. The game is also available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Apple Arcade.

As you launch your first game, there’ll be an introduction with a swinging song, which explains who Hector is and how Beryl Ware died. From here, you’ll be at your headquarters. Your headquarters will have several tabs to choose from after you successfully complete your first job. There are four areas up for selection. The Job map is where all jobs will be displayed. The map will have 5 locations: the Business District, Park, Restaurant District, Industrial Estate and the Almighty Goul-B-Gone HQ. As you start the game, you’ll only have access to the Business District; you’ll need to accumulate 50k to unlock the Park, 250k for the Restaurant, 500k for the industrial estate and 1 million to have a shot at saving Beryl’s soul at the Ghost HQ; a lot of jobs ahead of you!  You can check challenges at the Protaghoulnists.net. These challenges vary from clearing several rooms in one district, to capturing a number of a specific type of ghost, with a variety of challenges in between. You can check the net before selecting your next job. As you complete each of these challenges, you’ll be given extra coins or ghost coupons. The ghost coupons can be used to purchase artwork at the concept gallery. The last tab is the handbook, which is a very good gamepedia, and you can even edit the name of each ghost, which is great fun! 

With his plasma blaster in hand and his vacuum on his back, Hector will have to save a certain number of civilians in order to complete a job, regardless of whether or not he clears all the rooms. As he enters a new room, ghosts will randomly appear; he’ll need to shoot at them with his plasma blaster until they are stunned, at which point he can use his vacuum to catch them. But it is not going to be that easy. First, he has to move around items that might be blocking his path, such as desk, bins and furniture.  And he needs to be careful of shooting electrical goods, such as photocopiers and servers, which can explode if he shoots at them too many times.  If he is too close to these devices when they explode, he will lose one heart out of three.  Health may also be lost if he is touched by a ghost or one of their projectiles.  Try not to overheat his plasma blaster and vacuum, or he will have to wait a few seconds for them to cool down.

On a positive note, Hector can be promoted on the job! Each time he captures a ghost, not only will he receive cash (on the invoice when he completes the job) but the promoting gauge, which will appear to the left of him, will start to fill in from bottom to top, and when it is full he will have three perks to choose from. Hector may even be promoted a few times per job, which is really helpful. Then he will carry all these perks with him on his subsequent jobs, until (or if) he is demoted (in other words, the ghosts get the better of him!).  If that is the case, he’ll have to re-earn these perks, and boy it can be hard, especially if you decide to go for big jobs in the harder locations. Don’t despair, there are also items he can pick up in rooms, which will help him to stun ghosts, regain health, and also pick up a few more dollars in his runs. 

It is very similar to the Binding of Isaac, in terms of how the levels are laid out, going from one room to the next (but there are no mini bosses; just one at the end). You can play as a single player or on a co-op mode.

Very colourful, with vibrant cartoon graphics and an exceptional soundtrack. You can play the game with your mouse and keyboard or a gamepad. The levels are well-designed and are bigger in each new unlocked location, and the gameplay is super entertaining. The game has been translated into over 10 languages, and you have the ability to use the twitch and mixer application for streamers. My biggest issue is the resolution glitch; I like to change the resolution a few times to make sure it works properly, but I unfortunately had several issues with that, one of which totally locked up my system. I would have scored higher in this game had I not encountered this issue.