In all seriousness, though, Slug 'Em Up is a 3D third person shooter but with snails. That's about as complicated as it gets, really, and you know what? I love it. Why not snails? Why do terrorists and CTU keep stealing the spotlight? To me, there are 4 points to this game really worth talking about, 2 good and two bad, which is basically every reviewer's dream. I'm suitably excited, so let's get this show on the road.
I'll start off with the bad stuff because I kinda want to end this review on a high note (which is not something I usually do, so that should already speak volumes of my opinion on this game). First off, why on Earth would anyone think it's a good idea to limit the input on a third person shooter exclusively to the keyboard? This is what the mouse does best, aiming and clicking. Instead, we have to deal with the notoriously finicky arrow keys, so good luck trying to turn to the left and shoot at the same time. What bugs me most is that you can only use two weapons at a time, and guess how many buttons a mouse has on it?
The second thing that bugged me, though to a much lesser extent, was how the game went about conveying its controls. Normally, when I complain about conveyance, I complain that a game holds my hand too tightly and is so terrified that I may have recently undergone a full frontal lobotomy that it has to explain every last detail to me in a way that doesn't allow me to spread my creative wings and fly into a few brick walls. In this game, however, it's the exact opposite. Here, you're not given enough indication of how the mechanics work. I played three full matches before I realized that the little snail things that follow you are in fact your ammunition, which I guess makes sense for that one weapon that makes one of them grow to a gigantic size and crush your enemies, but how exactly does one take two slug creatures and convert it into a bomb in less than a second? A simple picture of a snail next to the number underneath the weapon denoting how much ammo one round eats up would have gone a long way for me, and that's just one example. It's not a huge problem, as I had a firm enough grasp on the controls to be competitive in the second round, but still. Just because too heavily conveying your mechanics is bad doesn't mean you get to forget the idea of conveyance as a whole.
All right, now for the good stuff. Unfortunately, since I'm such a hypercritical little snark biscuit, these paragraphs won't be nearly as long as the previous two, but that doesn't mean I didn't value these qualities as much as I resented the others. As I said, I want to end this review on a high note because I'm so impressed by the game.
First off, the visual design. High poly count? check. stylized characters and world? check. Loads of bright, pastel colors to keep everything looking interesting? check. Characters leave a little trail of goop behind them, which is not only cute and fun to look at, but is a tremendous help when seeking out your enemies? check. This game is definitely up there for the best visual design of any game on this list. It's no Nitronic Rush, mind you, but I think it could nuzzle itself safely somewhere in the back end of the top 10.
Second off, the gameplay. What's not to love? The weapons are all very well designed and extremely satisfying to use and, more importantly, to have used on you. Blowing someone across the map would swiftly lose its appeal if it weren't just as fun to be blown across the map yourself. This game demands just the right amount of diligence in order to not get your slimy rear handed to you, and if you disagree, you can just modify the number of opponents to chance the difficulty in an impactful way.
Long story short, this game is good. Great, even. It definitely earns my seal of approval. Nice work, guys. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay salient.
Links
Squishy Vengeance: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24673
