[Review] Weapon of Choice

(This review is a few hours late due to a connection problem. Sorry!)

Weapon of Choice (WoC for short) is the rather unusually-named game of choice for most fans of the XNA Community. Unlike several other XNA games, which are little more than interactive slide shows, WoC is an accomplished shooter that aims to be a showcase for all independent games on the Xbox Live platform.

That being said, WoC doesn’t differentiate itself much from the contemporary norm for shooters, using a twin-stick control system much like the one found in the Geometry Wars games or Commando 3, and sporting a storyline that is as ridiculous as it is entertaining. On a side-note, the simplicity of its gameplay and the retro presentation would not have been out of place in any early 1990’s game. Yes, this is meant as a compliment.

What does help to differentiate WoC some from every other shooter in the market is its different characters. Instead of a lives system, you are given three different operatives with different weaponry available, each of which only has one life. Once they are critically injured, you must choose a different operative, with the added option of rescuing the downed operative and carrying them to the end of the level where you will be once again capable of choosing them for a level.

You can also do this with hidden characters, which help bring the total of operatives to seven. The ability to choose different characters each time you play the game will remind you of the Metal Slug series, but the differences between each character in WoC as well as the sheer number of them makes the game stand on its own.

Enough with theory though, how does WoC fare on the dreaded Intentionmeter?

Things Weapon of Choice does right:

- While axioms don’t always work, despite their claims to the contrary, sometimes they are right: The best things in life are simple, and that is the case with WoC’s gameplay. It’s intuitive enough, the twin-sticks control scheme is so often copied because it works great, and shooting everything that moves until it does is always fun. Doesn’t get much simpler than that.

- The few new things that the game brings to the table work well. The secondary fire option in every character’s arsenal helps with some tight spots, and the Deathbrushing system (where in the few moments before your character dies, time slows down, bullet-time style) also helps a lot when it comes to getting out of said tight spots.

- The sheer wealth of available characters adds extra replayability to the game, and games of this genre were always meant to be replayed to begin with.

- At 400 Microsoft points, it’s very competitively priced compared to most other shooters available on the Xbox Marketplace.

Things about Weapon of Choice that aren’t that great:

- While I am not one to berate an independent game over its graphics, I must make an exception here. WoC’s graphics are often too muddled to be able to tell what is happening on-screen, with enemy sprites and backgrounds almost blending together. In a game where you rarely have the time for second guesses, this is a pretty big deal.

- Enemy designs feel like something out of a bad acid trip. While that is not necessarily a bad thing in game where you are supposed to kill everything dead, it makes the aesthetics of the game look a bit too trippy.

- For a game that looks as simplistic as this one, there are a few occasions where the game slows down to almost a crawl. It’s forgivable for an independent game, but it inarguably still looks bad.

Things I just don’t get:

- The complete lack of a scoring system and a leaderboard is a mind-boggling, head-scratching omission. The sole purpose of this kind of games, especially back when they were almost too difficult to ever complete, was to attain the highest score out of all your friends and/or everyone at the local Arcade. A shooter without a scoring system therefore sounds almost like an oxymoron.

While perhaps not the tour-de-force that the XNA games need so badly, since Weapon of Choice is held back by mostly budgetary issues, it still remains a very fun game at a highly competitive price.

Final Verdict:
CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

TL;DR version:

Weapon of Choice is seriously as close as you’ll get to ever playing a Psygnosis shooter again, aside from trying to get your old Amiga to work after all these years in the attic. Certain omissions and design choices will make you wonder “What gives?” but it’s certainly not bad for a first try from a new developer.