The world has withered away into a post-apocalyptic hell. And all that’s left of the America you know are cars, bullets, and gasoline. It’s a good thing World War III wiped this place clean before the gasoline went dry. If it hadn’t the top down car-centric shooter from Octane Games, Wasteland Angel, would’ve been over before it started.
Gameplay
As a throwback to yesterday’s arcade shooters, Wasteland Angel is a top down shooter that pits you against wave after wave of slavers, mutants, and AWOL military units. Their objective is to capture the citizens of what few shanty towns remain. You’ll take on the role of Angel, a sassy slightly jaded survivor of the nuclear holocaust who has modified her car into some sort of sleek death coupe.
Since the game is a shooter its gameplay is pretty straightforward. The idea is to drive about, blasting your adversaries while protecting/achieving your objectives. The fun starts to happen as Angel starts collecting some powerups that will alter her base weapons and provide special weapons. The weapon enhancements can range from homing missiles and nuclear bombs to electromagnetic pulses and stationary turrets. The various special abilities can be used strategically to kill off large groups of enemies or to set up defenses around their objectives. The latter of which can provide you a smidgin of a tower defense element.
The game is centered around vehicular combat, so the controls are a little more complicated than your standard space shooter. You’ve got wheels, and wheels on cars like to work in certain ways. The controls manage to represent this by making the right analog stick always turn the cars wheels left or right, regardless of the cars orientation on screen. This really is the most logical way you could do this, but it remains a slightly alien sensation.
Several stages make up each level. The stages themselves are pretty generic with little deviation from the initial formula. They are all about fending off waves of enemies and protecting populations. At the end of each level you’ll fight a boss battle that is some sort of monstrous super vehicle. These fights tended to be overly simplistic and possess little to no razzle dazzle. I more or less felt that the boss battles were a missed opportunity to introduce some ridiculous stuff — maybe some relics left over from WWIII perhaps?
After each boss battle you are rewarded with a bonus stage. I actually use “rewarded” quite purposefully, because the bonus stages are the absolute most fun in the game. Rather than being in the top down perspective of the rest of the game, the bonus stages are played from the cockpit of the car. All the physics, weapons, and enemies are the same, but the more intimate perspective makes all the combat feel far more exhilarating. I would’ve absolutely loved to have been given the option of simply selecting between the top down perspective and the first person perspective in the rest of the game.
All said and done, the gameplay of Wasteland Angel is just pure unadulterated fun. The kind of fun where you can just sort of slip into the zen regions of your brain and turn a mutants tractor into shrapnel. This is really made possible by the games versatile difficulty system that can crank it down to a level an American Idol fan can appreciate or dial it up to a challenge the harder brand of gamer can enjoy.
Story
As previously mentioned the story of Wasteland Angel is that of a young lady who’s survived the nuclear holocaust of World War III. Narrated by Angel herself, the story is told from the first person perspective with many of its facts and motives of others obfuscated by Angels lack of omniscience.
Roughly a third of the way through the game introduces a new overarching story that really starts to get its teeth in you. Unfortunately by the end, the game reveals itself as an aspiring episodic title that hardly gets started before it comes to a somewhat irritatingly “Lost” style end with little or no reveal.
Audio/Visual
The world of Wasteland Angel is somehow very reminiscent of the one created in Take Two’s Borderlands. A dusty desert world lost in lawlessness and ravaged by war filled to the brim with brown and earthen toned everything. This setting makes for a very dull environment, devoid of points of interest. From ocean to ocean the radioactive landscape looks bland and lifeless in a way that feels convenient rather than compelling.
By contrast, I really dug the cut scene’s graphic novel style art. The graphic novel notion is further carried by the minimalist animation. A subtlely waving bit of hair or a sudden page flip like reveal of a kick makes you feel as though you’re thumbing through the glossy pages of an actual comic. These cutscence are the main source of the Borderlands vibe. With their heavy outlines and their affinity for blackened crisp shadows it was hard not to draw the comparison. Whatever the inspiration, the art works and is quite welcome. Not to mention the scenes were never greedy with my time and always got me back in the action in short order.
The audio of the game is adequate but uninspiring. The sound effects never really intruded — the only exception being the “citizens being abducted” alert — which I suppose should be somewhat alarming. The rest of the sounds were fine. The music of the game has its high points but nothing that really sunk in as being memorable. More of note is the games voice acting. I really flip flopped back and forth between thinking it was terrible and great. Inevitably, I came to realize it was the lines cliché nature that made the satisfactory voice acting seem blasé.
Summary
On the whole Wasteland Angel was a fairly positive gaming experience that rewarded me with fun. And from time to time that’s all a game really has to be to make it worth picking up. In this case it was a pretty close call, as the fraction of a story, slightly plain environments, and uninspired boss battles tempered its fun value to such an extent that it’s impossible for me to fully endorse it. However, if you are a fan of this top down arcade style of shooter and are only looking for some quick satisfaction, it could serve that purpose. The game is currently available on Steam, Impulse,GamersGate, D2D and Amazon for the introductory price of $7.99.
