Developer: Wild Sphere
Publisher: Wild Sphere
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Timothy vs. the Aliens – Review
At first glance, Timothy vs. the Aliens looks quite good when you check it out in different trailers. Earlier console versions weren’t really well-received and garnered a lot of negativity for multiple aspects of the game. Now, the developers have made the Switch version, and we hoped that the they would’ve improved the game since its prior release. Sadly, it’s even worse on Nintendo’s hybrid console.
Story
In this game you play as a gangster named Timothy, and the fate of the world is in your hands. In the first few cutscenes, you see Timothy receiving a strange power gifted to him by a group of aliens. After he wakes up, the world is suddenly being invaded by aliens, and with your new power and some ballistic weapons, you need to save the world. The story progresses in a simplistic fashion with clear objectives marked on the map where you need to go to. You’ll encounter acquaintances of Timothy or get attacked by waves of enemies. The story isn’t really that interesting, but may still be one of the game’s greatest aspects, which tells you a lot about the game’s other aspects.
Graphics
When looking at the game’s graphics with the capabilities of the Switch in mind, the game looks pretty good. The graphical style used in the game looks nice and the color palette of black and white, with only the aliens being brightly colored, makes the game look very good. Sadly, the performance of the game is lacking a lot, and perhaps it would have been better to tone down the graphical quality, rather than aiming for a game that just looks good.
Sound
The sound design in this game is pretty okay in our opinion. The music you hear while playing the game is very calm and gentle, with a lot of saxophone music accompanied by a piano and some gentle drums in the background. Combine this with all the classic cars in the city and the ’60s environment, and you’ll have a game that really feels like you’re in a Godfather game. Of course, the aliens totally ruin that feeling, but that doesn’t detract from the overall sound quality.
Gameplay
Timothy vs. the Aliens is an open-world third-person platformer where you control Timothy, who is tasked with saving the world from an alien invasion. At first glance, this definitely looks like a fun game to play, but the gameplay really ruins that first impression when you actually start playing the game.
The controls in this game are quite simple, but everything feels weird when playing. Walking around, jumping, shooting; nothing really feels like any other game we are used to. For starters, the game has a lot of issues with lag. When playing the game, it feels like this game demands too much from the Switch’s hardware. While walking, turning the camera, shooting, and everything else you do, the game stutters a lot, which makes the game run in an awful way. With the game being a 3D game with platformer aspects, the game should have some good mechanics for walking and jumping, but this game really doesn’t. While you can run in this game, you have to pay a lot of attention while doing it, as when you come close to an edge of a wall or something else, Timothy bounces off of it and is incapacitated for a short while.
You will encounter areas where you need to jump from platform to platform to reach your goal. With the bad gameplay mechanics, you’ll fall off those platforms a lot, which can be really annoying. To make it extra painful, the developers also made places where you need to flick a switch and race against time to reach a higher point by platforming before time runs out. Combining this with the bad walking, jumping, and running mechanics, these places are a hell to get through. This did make us just quit playing quite a few times.
The shooting in this game isn’t properly fleshed out either. With the first pistol you acquire, you’ll have six bullets in the chamber and unlimited ammo. This weapon feels very weak, as even the smallest aliens already need three well-placed shots to be killed. These aliens also tend to come at you in large numbers from all directions; so with this gun, it is hell to survive. To survive, you have to walk backwards while shooting at the aliens in front of you. When you’re unlucky enough to have some aliens spawn behind you, you’ll have a big problem. You do have a special power that slows all time around you, but this won’t always be enough to save your skin against a big group of aliens. You can however get access to all the cars around the streets, and while in them, you’ll just drive over all the aliens you encounter, which makes traveling through the town a bit easier.
Somewhat later in the game, you’ll receive new weapons with bigger magazines and more stopping power, but with a limited amount of ammo. In this game, ammo is quite scarce to come by and the aiming and firing keep feeling weird, leading to a lot of missed shots. The aliens will never stop coming at you, and stronger aliens will start spawning as you progress through the game. Overall there are a lot of things that really make the game a lot less fun to play. Healing items are also very scarce, so you really have to be careful, or you won’t live that long.
Conclusion
When looking at Timothy vs. the Aliens in trailers, this game looks like it can be a lot of fun to play. With a black and white color palette with only the aliens having some color, the game looks very interesting. The game also has some good background music and an environment that feels rather fun to be in. Sadly, the game has quite some shortcomings in multiple departments and the Switch version also has a lot of issues with performance. Walking around, platforming, and shooting all feel really bad, which really takes a lot of fun out of the game. The earlier versions of the game were already received badly and with the performance issues on the Switch, this version feels even worse. We’d suggest waiting for a sale on a different (more powerful) platform if you insist on giving this one a go.
No Comments