By Dom Dalpez
Developer: Old School Games Publisher: Atlus Rated: T for Teen
Platforms: Xbox Live Arcade (Reviewed Version), Playstation Network, PC
Price: 800 Ms (XBLA), $10.00 PSN & PC Release Date: July 17, 2013
As yet another addition to the list of many movie based games, RIPD the game, attempts to give players justice and send us into the comic’s world. Unfortunately, like the ghostly AI that you will be spending the next several hours killing called “Deados” (a name that sounds more like a bad attempt at a Halloween based cereal product), the game falls dead in its tracks. Not just as a source of entertainment, but of a game that is worth time and the money spent on it.
The game’s first mistake was being priced for 800 Microsoft Points (a generous $10). The second was making a game that’s, at is core, just a type of horde mode. Everybody loves what the video game industry is doing with these types of game variants; making them additions to full-fledged game with single-player and multiplayer. Yet, to make it a full arcade game with just this game type is nothing short of asking gamers to dislike the games they have created.
While in game, wave after wave of mindless “Deados” are sent after you for you to kill to move on until the final wave (the 5th wave for each area). Nothing but the word repetitive can be used to describe the gameplay just after you finish the first map you play on. You face seven main types of enemies present in the game; a hand weapon deado, a gun wielding deado, a healing deado, a car door shield gun wielding deado, a tank hand weapon deado, a tank minigun deado, a sniper deado, and as an added flavor bosses for the end of each mop. Each of these specific deados are a possible criminal (boss) that comes with extra health for you to either arrest or execute to finish.
Besides the issues with the repetitive gameplay mentioned above, there are other game play problems that need to be addressed. Many gamers who have played shooters, me being one of them, expect either the ‘Y’ or ‘D’ button on the controller to have the function of switching weapons. That is not the case in RIPD, and even after playing this game for a few hours one will find that a force of habit will cause you to use your top ability you had saved up after killing a bunch of deados. Some annoying features, but on a lesser tone than accidentally wasting your hard worked for abilities, are: the sniper laser sight from a deado will blind you, the grenade is not part of your arsenal but is for the enemy, the frustrating juggling that can occur when a tank wielding a hand weapon charges you and causes you to trip over and over again until you die (unless you repeatedly try to dodge once you get back to your feet). All of these add to the RIPD experience and cause you to wonder whether or not you feel like pulling through to the end of the game.
The final area changes things up the gameplay a little bit by making the player fight their way to the final boss through facing mini bosses and even more deados. One cool, initially interesting feature happened in the beginning of the fight but ended up being on the edge of annoying was slow motion gun play. This happened while we were rolling around and not caring since we had finally made it to the final boss. The final boss was beat, the achievements/trophies were awarded for completing the game…yet the two most important guns (the banana and hair dryer), which are only unlocked when completing the game, are just to far out of reach and beyond the level of insanity priced at $250,000 in game dollars. It means you would have to play man more hours of this game in order to make enough money.
A game like RIPD is one that I would not spend anymore time playing because it teaches us that there are far better games out there which are worth the time and effort. This is a game I would not recommend to anyone I know for a fun video game experience.