![]() ![]() ![]() There were situations where I’d sometimes find myself wishing for a shotgun even though the game had just dropped a rocket launcher in my lap. That being the case, I’ll also say that even the most basic weapons are fun and satisfying to use and that the various guns all feel and handle differently enough that picking one up can completely alter the way you play a level. While it certainly delivers some nice and unique weapons, a lot of them are also the standard fare you’d expect from a title of this style. I’ll admit to not being super impressed with the game’s arsenal. Layered on top of these is an impressive collection of weaponry ranging from your basic pistol to plasma rifles and more. My personal favorite of the bunch, however, involves selling your soul to the devil in exchange for more perks. Another gradually boosts your walking speed as long as you never stop moving. One perk, for example, fills your character with such rage that it periodically manifests as an in-game explosion of firepower that blasts everything around you. Equipping these can give you access to increased firepower, faster reloads, extra ammo and a bevy of other less conventional abilities that are frequently imbued with a pleasant strain of humor. The game also makes brilliant use of perks, employing dozens of them that the player can earn by leveling up in the middle of battle. Granted, the changes between levels never really get much bigger than that, but it’s enough to feel like genuine variety. Another simply had the attacking aliens flood the screen simultaneously from two fixed directions. One stage, for instance, employed two rows of enemy spawning nodes that the player has to quickly destroy before they flood the screen with enemies. run and shoot) with cleverly designed stages and play modes (campaign, survival, rush, co-op) that manage to feel familiar while still offering unique challenges that kept me from feeling like I was just playing progressively more difficult versions of the same level. ![]() It might not have the niceties of a gorgeous AAA title, but Crimsonland plays like a dream, combining the easy to grasp mechanics of a top-down SHMUP (a.k.a. Even so, god damn if this game isn’t fun! Its music is forgettable and its enemies, at best, are a cavalcade of been-there-done-that that only impressed me with the extent to which they were recycled. Its environments are almost exclusively flat and gray. Recently re-released at GOG in HD form (I played the attached classic version), Crimsonland doesn’t look like anything special at first glance. I enjoyed the game and I hope to hop into it again someday, but after two weeks of playing almost nothing other than an RPG with more moving parts than I can count on all of my safe-for-work digits, I was ready to move on to something a bit more on the brainless side. That’s pretty much where my mind was following the end of my time with Darklands. That said, I do still have moments where I sit down at the end of a long day/week/month and want nothing more than to mindlessly blow a pack of (insert cannon fodder) straight to virtual hell. I want to know why I’m doing it and have a clear picture of what the stakes are if I fail. There comes a point where I’m no longer content to blast aliens just for the heck of it. As pretentious as it sounds though, I’m the type of person that tends to get bored if I’m playing something without some type of story or some sort of deeper experience to keep me engaged. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course. It’s not that I have anything against them, it’s just that, in my experience, they tend to exist in the realm of pure gameplay. Whether you’re looking for a game to master and revisit for hours or something to blow off steam with for a few minutes, it’s the perfect game for fast fun. Crimsonland Classic doesn’t look like much but delivers the sort of pure, unadulterated arcade fun that every gamer needs from time to time. ![]()
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