Save the Robot – Chris Dahlen

I don’t want to preempt my own review of the game, which’ll run next week. But I had to take a minute and explain why Jets ‘N’ Guns GOLD is just blowing my mind.

It’s simple: Let’s say you and your buddies are sitting around having some pizza and beer, and you’re in a good mood, and someone says, “We should make a game.” Someone else says, “We should make a game that’s awesome” (’cause why else would you make a game?). Some other guy says, “Yeah.”

You talk about every single thing that could make a game awesome. Maybe you even write it down. Most of your ideas are derivative of other games you’ve loved in the past, because you’re not really trying to break your brain here – you’re just thinking, “If A, B, C, D, and E make something awesome – where A is pirates, B is violence, C is space ships, D is humor and E is beer – then add ‘em all together and you’ve got a SUPER awesome game.”

But here’s the catch. You and your buddies will never do anything about it. I mean, it just never happens ,right?

Except the Rake in Grass team finished Jets ‘N’ Guns, a few years ago. They supported it with patches and a community forum. Then they released a longer, better (I’m assuming) version called Jets ‘N’ Guns GOLD, and they keep patching that one too, to make sure it’s as good as it possibly can be. And holy crap, is it good.

JNG is a 2-D scroller that I’d call “retro” -think Defender - except I don’t think many old arcade games had just this much crap going on at all times. The action of piloting your little ship through obstacles and against enemies gets so intensely furious, and the couple dozen weapons you choose from can spit so much ordinance onto the screen, that when it really reaches full frenzy, I don’t know how the brain keeps track of it anymore. (There must be a good study in separating important elements – where you are, and where the bullets are – from non-crucial ones, like the backdrops, sight gags, and cows – there are fucking COWS in this game, btw; you can shoot ‘em and everything. Theyre worth 80 points.)

Okay, there’s the content – they threw in EVERYTHING. Space pirates, viruses, aliens, wind-up mice, zombies, and beer – yeah, you have to shoot down bottles of beer – as well as every plot device in the book. You fight through a live slaughter reality show, you protect hot female scientists from a bunch of letchy aliens – last night I went back through time and inadvertently saved myself in the future. There are gags everywhere, like in the secrets and treasure you pick up, or the weapons (one of them is a missile shaped like a comic book super hero, another is a disco-style omnidirectional laser called “J. C. Superstar”). This is all explained by way of single-screen comic exposition panels that are hilarious and don’t really make any great sense. There’s a story here, but who cares – it’s the fact of the content and the speed with which they deploy it that will make you laugh.

But it also plays well. It’s incredibly hard, but if you’re smart about your weapon choices and you don’t mind replaying a level a couple dozen times, you can get through it. (Okay, granted, I’m on the easy setting.) At the same time, it’s well balanced. You get some easy levels thrown in among the hard ones, and if on one level you have to deck out your ship with every weapon you have the cash to buy, the next level, you’ll probably be stripped down to scuba gear and your two best laser cannons. But more than that, you feel like the game really wants you to win. The pointers at the start of each mission are helpful and right to the point. The makers don’t want you to feel frustrated or confused – but they do want you to be challenged, ’cause that’s what makes winning so sweet.

Now, some of the ladies in the audience may say, “This sounds like a guy game.” And I guess it is. But I think it’s weak to apply gender-terms on something like this, no matter how testosterone-pumpingly-puerile it sounds. So I refuse to say that it’s skewed more towards teenage boys than women of any age. I refuse to condescend to you with similarly gender-skewed descriptions (”Okay ladies, imagine if someone combined Diner Dash with World of Warcraft!”). I like to believe that all of us, regardless of age, gender, race or creed, like to rock once in a while. If you think you don’t, give this a try.

I haven’t finished it yet. I’m on level 30-something, I’ve lost track, and I’ve been up against some nasty bosses. But I’ve never felt truly defeated by anything in the game, and every level I’ve played was exciting, fun, and rewarding as hell, eventually. Even the dumbest gags have a certain integrity. But most of all, I know the people who made it must be really proud of it. So here’s my high-five to them: You guys are living the dream!

(BTW, thanks again to GameTunnel for turning me onto this game. They just ran their last monthly indie game panel – wtf?)

UPDATE: Here’s the review.