The side-scrolling beat-’em-up genre, which thrived in the arcade halls of the 80s and the 90s with classic games and series like Kung Fu Master, Final Fight, and Double Dragon, took a pretty big hit with the advent of the 3D perspective. And so, it’s no surprise that Chainsaw Syndicate, in collaboration with Headup Games, have sought to bring back the glory days with their 2D side-scroller Arson & Plunder. Arson & Plunder was first released as a mobile title in 2012, but now – adding the subtitle “Unleashed” – they’ve created a comprehensive high-resolution port for Xbox 360 and Windows. Keep reading our review to find out what we thought.
Fiendish Plans If you’ve ever played any of the older beat-’em-up titles, where you fight your way through dark alleyways and parking lots filled with gang members and thugs of all stripes, you might be a bit perplexed with Arson & Plunder at first. Instead of cleaning up urban streets in the service of law and order, you find yourself in a fantasy forest setting (one with more than a few real-world references, though). The story’s pretty simple: The ages-old conflict between Elves and Orcs for supremacy of the forest is heating up once again, when suddenly a third party appears out of nowhere. A small man interrupts the battle to inform the two confused parties that, per the orders of someone named Maldecoy, the forest is to be cleared in order to make way for a future amusement park/resort. Of course, neither the Orcs nor the Elves are willing to sit by and let this happen. They decide to send their two greatest champions, the Elven sorceress Arson and the Orcish warrior Plunder, on a mission that will force them to work together in order to put a stop to Maldecoy’s plans.
After this brief prologue scene, the two heroes set out in search of a magical stone, hidden deep inside a cave guarded by hostile lizard warriors. As you clobber your reptilian foes, text boxes appear to inform you about important items, your magic points increase with each enemy you defeat, and you familiarize yourself with the two protagonists’ attack options. Arson and Plunder each have their own unique combat style. Arson the sorceress hurls fireballs from a distance, and can use her special attack to launch flames into the air, which then rain down from the sky, getting rid of several enemies at once. Plunder the Orc warrior, on the other hand, is specialized in melee combat, hacking at his enemies with his heavy battle-axe. His special attack allows him to ram through the ranks of the enemy, knocking them out of the way. And since you can switch back and forth between Arson and Plunder at the push of a button, you don’t have to just choose one and stick with it.
The game is divided into five chapters, which are in turn composed of five acts each. The goal of each one is just to make it from the beginning to the end, vanquishing all foes that stand in your way. The forces of the enemy are made up of the lizard warriors I mentioned above, hooded archers, and armored knights, among others. Just like old school beat-’em-ups, the screen won’t scroll forward in most places until you’ve defeated all the enemies in your path. Only then will you be able to move forward. The crude AI, where enemies really only attack or run away, means that the only time you’re in any real danger is when they come after you en masse. There’s usually a boss at the end of each chapter that you’ll have to defeat. You don’t really need to come up with any special tactics or anything, as most of the time you just have to dodge the boss’s attack and then keep whaling on him till his life bar runs out.
More players, more fun Trying to play using the keyboard controls is for the most part an awkward and clunky affair, so I don’t recommend it. This is mainly because you move the character using the arrow keys, while other individual keys are used to perform the various attack moves. You should probably try using a console controller supported by the game (Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4), which will make for a much smoother and more comfortable experience.
One of the things about the game that really stands out (in a good way) is that it doesn’t take itself seriously at all. Just an example – after you rescue a farmer whose village has been overrun by enemies, he wishes you a nice day and a high score. Another instance involves a boss you’ve just mortally wounded, who falls to his knees before expiring, lamenting that he’d only had one more day to go before he retired.
Despite the high degree of comic relief, the gameplay itself – pretty much just run into the fray and take out as many bad guys as you can – can get pretty monotonous after a while, especially in single-player. Fortunately, there are additional game modes to keep you entertained. There’s a survival mode where not only to you have to fight off waves of enemies (depending on level), but also avoid all kinds of mechanical traps, like nasty spears and fireballs.
Where Arson & Plunder: Unleashed really gets to be a lot of fun, however, is in the game’s excellent multiplayer mode. You can join together with other players to complete the campaign or survival mode, either by playing local co-op with a friend, or banding together with other players in online mode. This allows up to four people to play together, causing all kinds of mischief on screen.
Brightly Colored and Bloody
Arson & Plunder features bright, colorful cartoony graphics with deliberately jerky animations to give it a playful, retro feel. It doesn't hold anything back when it comes to violence, either, and combat is one blood-drenched fight after another. This combination of cartoony, kid-friendly visuals with exaggerated, graphic violence reminded me of South Park in a lot of ways. The characters and levels are depicted in a way that’s sympathetic and self-consciously silly, which means that the two heroes stand in stark contrast to the protagonists of classic games in the genre. Backgrounds do get pretty repetitive, though, and the individual levels themselves really aren’t all that different from one another, either.
The soundtrack that accompanies this fantasy adventure is, contrary to what you might expect from such a tale, made up of heavy-metal guitar music. At first, the deliberately anachronistic they take here might seem pretty cool, just the right sound for the over-the-top combat on the screen. After a certain amount of time, however, you realize it’s a monotonous loop that doesn’t vary in the slightest as you fight your way from level to level. So if you’re not exactly the kind of person who gets fired up by surrounding yourself with as much noise as possible, the music will probably start to get on your nerves, though luckily you can always turn it down in the options, or even cut it off entirely.
bom
it looks nice
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