Developer: Party Robot Studio
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Machine Gun Train Run – Review
MGTR is a side-scrolling 2-D shooter, where P.A.L.’s fight A.S.S.H.A.T.’s with MG’s, whilst strolling on top of trains, giving zero eff’s. The future is a scary and dangerous place, which is why those, who wish to stay alive, need best equipment possible. A machine gun.
Story
When it comes to side-scroll shooters, the story is basically an explanation of why you’re going to kill enemies, and will, for the most part, be ignored in all those games. The entire exposition is laid out in one of the loading screens, that’s where the game’s story begins and ends. Campaign mode follows P.A.L. – Power Assault Leader squad as it chases A.S.S.H.A.T. – Agressive Society Supporting Hatred, as the latter hijacks magnetic levitation trains worldwide to „steal stuff”. Action’s set in 2033, which explains the futuristic weapons used by the protagonists and their enemies, such as machine guns and rockets. There are two playable characters: The Hammer and Sledgevessel, dressed blue and red respectively. Across four missions they are deployed onto various trains across the world in order to retrieve them from A.S.S.H.A.T.
Graphics
Visually the game doesn’t stand out among similar flash game titles, as everything’s based on 2-D sprites, but it runs much smoother than a flash game. All enemies, apart from bosses have two or three animations, however the protagonist makes up for it, topping out at seven and I have to say making him smirk every time he pulls the trigger is a nice touch. There are three types of projectiles in the game, namely player’s bullets, enemy rockets and purple-orange balls of death shot by some of the A.S.S.H.A.T.
Sound
There are roughly fifteen sound effects in the game, none of them too annoying, which is good, as you’ll be hearing them a lot. A total of seven songs fill out the background as you mow down bad guys. One in particular stands out as quite a funky beat, however the spell is broken when the song ends leaving about four or five seconds of silence in the loop, which quite frankly breaks the spell.
Gameplay
From a side-scrolling shooter, one would expect at least a couple different tools with which to dispose of enemies, alas weapons cannot be modified or changed, there is no secondary fire or secondary weapon. It comes down to running with the fire button pressed constantly and your machine gun’s sound spamming your brain. Action, like controls, feels awkward. After playing Broforce for a while it feels slow and annoying. The game is separated into 3 modes – campaign, endurance and speedrun. Performance in the campaign is gauged by points scored by shooting enemies and the amount of respawns used, which decides the number of stars awarded, up to five. Campaign consists of four levels, the fourth being unlocked only upon completing the previous three with a score of three stars or more.
Enemies come in several types: foot soldiers with rockets or ball projectiles, bikes and hoverbikes riding next to the train, flying machines in the sky, minibosses and bosses. Once you get their timing right, you blaze past them like a bored There are also flying units, which might be enemies, cause they award points if you shoot them, but never shoot back, they just float past the screen. Regular A.S.S.H.A.T.’s got the Diablo treatment – different colour in later levels, more HP and attack speed. Levels themselves are rather short, each can be finished within five minutes, including respawns. Player has three HP, and an unlimited numer of respawns, however all points gathered up to a death are lost upon respawn. The points seem to be useless, other than being a benchmark, as nothing depends on them, as opposed to stars.
Speedrun is unlocked once the player has cleared all maps in campaign and plays almost exactly the same as campaign, the only difference being there are no wait times between levels – they load right away.
Endurance is an entirely different experience. Instead of trains, there are several platforms on the screen, three lives and the player has to survive as long as possible against shapes. Not humans, not machines, not A.S.S.H.A.T., but colourful shapes. It has it’s own tune I could only describe as „cheerful lobby music”.
Conclusion
It’s hard to say wether the game tries to mock or emulate Broforce (Brewforce, really?), but it’s safe to say it fails at both. Gameplay is repetitive in the worst way and overcoming more difficult parts of a level brings relief, rather than satisfaction. It offers very little in the way of variety, game time and story, which puts it in line with free flash games, rather than five euro titles. In a world where Contra, Metal Slug and Broforce already exist, the bar isn’t set very high, and yet MGTR falls short of being even remotely close to clearing it. It doesn’t offer the variety of Contra, the mayhem of Metal Slug or humour of Broforce.
Machine Gun Train Run - Review,
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