Gunpowder On The Teeth: Arcade

Review

At ease soldier, I will keep this briefing short and get you geared up and in transport to the front lines shortly. Your assignment is simple; take your squad and infiltrate the enemy any way possible. Destroy their radar towers so we can begin our assault. The enemy fortifications are going to make things difficult; it will require the talents of your entire squad if we hope to overcome the enemy forces. They are building up for an assault on us, we must strike first!  They are well armed with many troops that must be taken out if we are to win this war. We must stop them at all cost. It is time to take the war to them!



Released and self-published on Feb 22, 2019, by the developer, Gunpowder Team, this is a hardcore, 2D, pixel, platforming, indie title, and their first release on steam.  I should clarify just a little on this;  when I say hardcore, I am being generous in the difficulty description. Maybe I should use something like immensely hardcore. The title is designed in such a way that it will require all of your patience to master, without your rage meter red-lining. For settings, you have fullscreen & window mode up to 1920 x 1080. Audio has a master volume and music sliders. Controllers have 3 presets you can choose from for Xbox 360, Dual Shockwave 4 or others you can choose from. For the keyboard, there are no actual settings; just a layout where you can see the key bindings.  Also an in-game achievement room so you can visually see them in-game like a trophy case. And last but not least a score area, that has a bunch of stats for your gameplay.

The title does feature full controller; I used my Xbox 360 controller for my playtime without issue. As keys are not re-bindable for the keyboard or controllers, I found it easier to play with a controller. There are 5 locations with a total of 15 missions, along with bonus vehicle missions, each with a unique boss fight. There are 5 characters to use as you play through, each one having a different class and loadout. Along with a Super Soldier, you can unlock collecting all the dog tags in the levels. During the vehicle missions, you will have tanks, helicopters and fighter planes to rain down the pain on your enemy. Did you think that would make it easy? Wrong! As with many classic titles, this one also has Easter eggs and secrets. Can you find them all while you battle your way deep into enemy territory?

What a game - I really did not expect the gameplay to be as difficult as it is. But I do love a challenging platformer, so I had to review this one when I was given the opportunity. It is very well-built with a good classic design as a basis for the title, a run & gun with jumping, with tons of pain along the way. I adored the art style instantly, the pixel graphics are well done. It was originally what caught my eye about the title. The level layouts are very challenging as you progress, but with a lot of rinse and repeat you can master the levels. I do mean a lot! The game can be quite cruel as some levels will even spawn you into barbwire if you're not prepared and shift to miss them.

I had a lot of fun mastering the levels that I have been able to so far. I loved it even more when one of my sons (who is normally better than me at these) had a go at it and raged levels below where I had gotten in my first play of it (lol). As I am getting on in my years, this genre has become much harder for me; but I am a gamer for life! Any time I can whip one of my children in a game is an awesome day for me. I really would like to see the addition of difficulty settings added to the title to open it to a broader audience, as I fear I shall never have the skill needed to finish the title at its current difficulty. But you can bet I will try! My only issue with the title was that the monotone graphics made it difficult to see some things in the game, as I am quite colorblind; a colorblind mode is always a blessing for me in games with these color schemes. And the keyboard and controllers are not re-configurable with custom key bindings.

I would not recommend this to a casual gamer, but if you're a hardcore fan of old school games, you are certain to love it. The first few levels of the game are not overly hard, actually. But know, it gets progressively harder with every passing level. Now is the time you must decide; do you have what it takes to destroy all the radar stations, and defeat the enemies and bosses that lie ahead!

 

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!


Positives

+ Extremely Challenging (As Advertised)
+ Fun Old School Gaming "Reborn"
+ Well-Done Pixel Graphics
+ Steam Achievements

Negatives

- Controls Not Reconfigurable
- No Steam Trading Cards (At the time of review)

Review Summary

Gunpowder on The Teeth: Arcade: A Tougher than Nails Platformer With an Old School Flavor!

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Zeepond Rating: 8/10

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