It's a third-person keyboard shooter with auto-aim, light puzzles and platforming. As it's a console game the camera jumps between over shoulder and static angles, which change viewpoint controls to tank controls. And like all the games on consoles that results in many awkward jumps over death pits. You move and turn with directional keys. There are also strafe keys, 180 turn action, and an ability to lay and crawl on the floor.
After the first two pretty easy levels the third level is a free for all nam and a big difficulty spike. There are two weird and kinda hard levels where you have to collect critters very fast before the enemies do that. There are a couple of bad jumps, and the last levels have a lot of platforming with obstacles over death pits. The game is already beatable, but now emulation with quick saves makes all the bad parts matter less. If you missed the last jump after a big platforming gauntlet with bad camera angles - next time you will just save on every section, so you don't have to slowly walk to the beginning of the level to try again, or run out of lives. The game was enjoyable on the release and it became enjoyable again, saved by the emulation.
After you beat the game there's something akin to a new game+, because you get to keep all your lives, some of the level-objectives are pre-completed and you get all the guns that you could possibly have on the said level before you pick up the upgrades.
There are many different weapons between two ammo types, and there are some support equipment. Despite looking ineffective all guns have their use at least sometimes. The short-ranged lightning laser thing seems useless, especially when you have hoops and seeking shots. But it can shoot through many obstacles and is basically mandatory on the last level. Now explosives are not as useful. I used them often back in the days, but now i've found them to be sub-par compared to most energy weapons. Only when you get ultimate rockets you can find several spots where they are helpful. In the rest of the game it's more about not wanting to risk a hit, so you try to aim your satellite and kill an enemy from an awkward position. The death from above is mostly just a meme and doesn't work in enclosed spaces. There's friendly fire in the game so you can use that to your advantage.
It's a fun little (but the run-time adds up to a proper count) and a pretty simple game. Even the harder levels can be replayed and explored until you memorize them. The themes are cool, the designs, animations and sound are outright great. Like, when you die there's often a detailed death animation, then you respawn by your embryo falling from above and you crowing into a new full-sized clone. All the spare lives are stored on the ship in full display.
So the story, as i understand it, goes something like this. Only the green-skinned race of grimloids works for a big food corporation. And said corporation decided to turn earth into a live-stock farm. The earth is a small backwater planet and is off-limits for visiting, so two semi-losers were sent to look over it. You play is one of the guards and has to give a time-travel chase to hunt down the bad guy CEO and save not only the earth, but also the grimloid homeworld. Somehow all the good guy grimloids are orange, but all the civilians in the homeworld's traffic are green.
The writing keeps a sarcastic tone with some light references.
After the first two pretty easy levels the third level is a free for all nam and a big difficulty spike. There are two weird and kinda hard levels where you have to collect critters very fast before the enemies do that. There are a couple of bad jumps, and the last levels have a lot of platforming with obstacles over death pits. The game is already beatable, but now emulation with quick saves makes all the bad parts matter less. If you missed the last jump after a big platforming gauntlet with bad camera angles - next time you will just save on every section, so you don't have to slowly walk to the beginning of the level to try again, or run out of lives. The game was enjoyable on the release and it became enjoyable again, saved by the emulation.
After you beat the game there's something akin to a new game+, because you get to keep all your lives, some of the level-objectives are pre-completed and you get all the guns that you could possibly have on the said level before you pick up the upgrades.
There are many different weapons between two ammo types, and there are some support equipment. Despite looking ineffective all guns have their use at least sometimes. The short-ranged lightning laser thing seems useless, especially when you have hoops and seeking shots. But it can shoot through many obstacles and is basically mandatory on the last level. Now explosives are not as useful. I used them often back in the days, but now i've found them to be sub-par compared to most energy weapons. Only when you get ultimate rockets you can find several spots where they are helpful. In the rest of the game it's more about not wanting to risk a hit, so you try to aim your satellite and kill an enemy from an awkward position. The death from above is mostly just a meme and doesn't work in enclosed spaces. There's friendly fire in the game so you can use that to your advantage.
It's a fun little (but the run-time adds up to a proper count) and a pretty simple game. Even the harder levels can be replayed and explored until you memorize them. The themes are cool, the designs, animations and sound are outright great. Like, when you die there's often a detailed death animation, then you respawn by your embryo falling from above and you crowing into a new full-sized clone. All the spare lives are stored on the ship in full display.
So the story, as i understand it, goes something like this. Only the green-skinned race of grimloids works for a big food corporation. And said corporation decided to turn earth into a live-stock farm. The earth is a small backwater planet and is off-limits for visiting, so two semi-losers were sent to look over it. You play is one of the guards and has to give a time-travel chase to hunt down the bad guy CEO and save not only the earth, but also the grimloid homeworld. Somehow all the good guy grimloids are orange, but all the civilians in the homeworld's traffic are green.
The writing keeps a sarcastic tone with some light references.
