Developer: Asmodev S.A.
Publisher: Ultimate Games
Platform: Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS5, Xbox Serie X/S
Tested on: PC
Ultimate Summer – Review
In the summer, many people look forward to tropical temperatures so they can finally go on their dream vacation and blow off some steam. What if your vacation turns into a real nightmare, however? Step in the shoes of a retired butcher who wants to visit a zoo on an isolated island, not knowing the ghoulish situation that he is getting himself into. This may be a nightmare for some but an Ultimate Summer for others.
Story
Ultimate Summer starts with an unnamed protagonist who is drawn to a remote island to visit a lovely zoo. Upon arrival, however, he stumbles on a pile of dead bodies and two strange figures who know about your past. They tell you to defend the place or be damned for all eternity. As our character used to be a butcher, he is skilled with certain deadly utensils, successfully defeating the first waves of attackers.
In the beginning, the game is really vague about what is going on, but slowly the story unfolds and tells you the background of the island and your character. After each level, there are a few slides, telling the story in a comic book format. This is not what you would expect from a budget indie game and it is actually quite nice. Ultimate Summer has a slow but steady flow as the game only has 23 levels.
Graphics
For a game that costs as much as a sandwich, you can’t expect wonders in the graphical or sound department. In all honestly, most assets look like they came from the Unity store and the animations have the same quality as twenty years ago. Even though there isn’t much going on from time to time, the game suffers serious frame drops; even on a more powerful system. Despite all the shortcomings, however, the setting does feel right. As you are on a sketchy remote island, the infrastructure is either really old or run down and it fits in nicely with the theme of being a tower defense game.
Sound
As you might have expected from looking at the game, the sounds share the same simplicity as the graphics. There is some basic rock music playing in the background, but nothing to really get your adrenaline flowing. The sound effects are pretty simple but they get the job done. While most of these SFX don’t really come off as annoying, the constant machinegun fire from your secondary weapon can make you deaf after a few waves.
Gameplay
Ultimate Summer is a hybrid between a third-person shooter and a tower defense game. Your main goal is to defend the strange machine that is placed inside your camp and survive the night. It all starts when the main protagonist goes to an island for a well-earned vacation. Stumbling upon a pile of dead bodies, he is instructed to prepare himself because a demon invasion is coming. As it turns out, the island now houses a bunch of delinquents that are raging a battle against heaven, hell, and everything in-between.
The game is divided into different days and each day can be played on multiple difficulty settings, which is perfect if you want to challenge yourself or rather take it easy. The first few levels serve as a tutorial to teach you how to play the game. You start with only an axe, but you get your hands on a machinegun rather soon. Ammo is infinite in this world, so you can just pull the trigger and mow down everything in your path. This is easier said than done because the hordes of hostiles are big and fierce, so you will have to rely on your traps, weapon alterations, and special abilities. Weapons can be purchased every day from the weapons vendor. This costs some souls but as you kill enemies you acquire the currency to upgrade to better weaponry. For traps it’s even easier; you just vandalize your surroundings to gather the building materials needed for purchasing the traps. Some traps will rearm themselves, such as bear traps, but others, like mines, are single-use only. These traps can only be placed on marked locations on the map. While at first your enemies will only take one route, they will take different routes as you progress.
Probably the most unique part of the game is that there are a large number of different enemy types and you can adjust your weapons to kill these enemies. There are random shrines where you can choose your damage type, to do more damage to certain enemies. Some monsters are from the hell, others might be aliens or from purgatory, etc.
Controlling the game is really easy. Combat only uses a few buttons to aim and shoot, while building structures is as easy as opening a menu and snapping the items in place. It seems that the game has been designed to fit most types of players and, with the different difficulty options, it can be interesting for all sorts of gamers.
The last trick up your sleeve is the frenzy mode. As you kill enemies, a rage meter fills, and when it’s full, you will do tremendous amounts of damage. You will have to combine everything in your arsenal to ensure that the enemies don’t reach the strange machine in your camp. Some enemies can sneak past you or fly so high that they aren’t spotted or found by traps. After each successful day, you will gain one skill point to invest into one of three perks. These perks aren’t that game-altering but are a fun extra to improve your character along the way.
Conclusion
While Ultimate Summer doesn’t look or sound all too great; for the price that you are paying you get a game with a nicely crafted story and simple yet fun gameplay. There is more than just building towers and go on your merry way. You will actually have to roll up your sleeves and do all the work yourself. If you look at the game as a shooter, you will certainly be disappointed. Yet, with the combination of the interactive building and fighting, mixed in with resource management, it makes for a rather unique experience. Given the game’s price point, you could do a lot worse than this quirky hybrid game.
Ultimate Summer – Review,
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