Sponsored By: You think I'd wait for this to come to me?
Time Played: 2 Hours
Bubblegum Review
A 3D Realms game that nobody likes? Sounds like a job for you-know-who.
Out of Bubblegum Review
When I first heard about this game, I was interested enough to make it my pick for the The Week Ahead post last week. When I found out it was from 3D Realms, it went on my “Buy this if it's less than $20” list. When I saw it got a Metacritic score of forty one, I purchased it on day one. When I fired it up and saw that Jon St. John was listed in the voice cast, my heart did a backflip and I had to bite a knuckle to keep from waking the kids up with my boyish glee.
The doctor was able to sew the knuckle back on, and he says if I stay off it for a while it will heal nicely. Unfortunately, that won't be possible, because staying off it would require not playing Bombshell, and I will be playing Bombshell.
Oh yes. See if I don't.
Bombshell is an isometric, third-person, action RPG from 3D Realms, and boy howdy does it show! This thing may as well come with a copy of its pedigree stapled to the splash screen.
For example, the very first cutscene ends with the heroine’s car being destroyed by alien artillery. Later, while mowing down alien shock troops with a weapon named – I am not making this up – the Ion Maiden, she quips “My car for your life. That's fair.”
Then I pressed E to perform an execution move that decapitated the alien soldier with an energy blade and I realized I wasn't playing any ordinary female protagonist. I was playing Duchess Nukem.
Boo, and also Yah.
The Duchess, a cashiered bomb-disposal technician named Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, is on a mission to rescue the president of the United States. The president has been kidnapped by aliens, because they don't like her tough talk about cracking down on murderous space invaders or her swank eyepatch.
Shortly after completing the tutorial, you are whisked away to the alien homeworld and start taking the fight to them. Fortunately, Harrison is armed like it’s a video game from 1999. I'd like to take a moment and thank 3D Realms for remembering that, thanks to the decimal number system, we have ten numerals on our keyboards. Why not map each of them to a unique weapon? It's not like our videogame character is going to buckle under the strain of carrying too many videogame weapons. She's been transported to an alien world faster than the speed of light. If we're going to break quantum physics in the service of narrative, I don't see why we can't break Newtonian physics in the service of gameplay.
Harrison is also armed with, well, an arm. The highest of high-tech prosthesis has been spot-welded onto the arm she lost in the service, and it does everything except look like a human arm. Apparently the pinnacle of prosthetic technology looks like an industrial accident at a chrome factory. It is, however, ruthlessly functional, providing the player with a host of abilities that would, in a high-fantasy RPG, be explained away by magic.
Of course, the arm doesn't do everything at the start. This is an RPG, after all. You have to earn upgrades by killing things and stealing their money. At any point you can call up your upgrade menu and, if you have the coin and satisfy the character-level requirements, you can purchase new abilities or upgrade old ones. Since you can do this at any time without access to a custom bike shop, I have to assume the abilities already exist in the hardware and she's unlocking them with firmware upgrades. Kind of like she's flashing her motherboard because a friend told her that this cheap, off-brand CPU is identical to one that costs hundreds of dollars more except for the firmware.
The gameplay is solid. You move with the WASD keys and use the mouse to aim and shoot. Having never played Diablo, I couldn't tell you how it compares. It feels more like a mouse-and-keyboard implementation of a dual-stick-shooter, if I'm being honest. I haven't tried a controller, and I've been happy enough with the mouse and keyboard that I'm not all that motivated to try. It works and it's fun; what else do I need?
The presentation is excellent for this kind of game. The graphics look good, reminding me of those isometric Lara Croft games, but the real star for me is the music. During a brief lull in the action, there was a guitar interlude that reminded me of the soundtrack from Labyrinth. Heck yeah!
I originally had two complaints about the game, both of which being technical issues where the camera would show me unhelpful things. They weren't game-breaking by any stretch, but 3d Realms has already patched those problems out and left me without anything to complain about.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a president to save and some side quests to grind so I can level up my humorously named weapons until they become humorously named harbingers of alien doom.
Hail to the queen, baby.
Will I Keep Playing?
I try to maintain a four-week buffer in my reviews for games that make me happy like this. This is, incidentally, also why I tend to review old and obscure games. Nobody cares if the review for a game that released six years ago posts a month after I wrote it.
Were it not for the buffer, I'd have to share time with other games to review. Instead, I can dedicate myself fully to completing this one without the risk of letting you fine people go without reading my thoughts on the latest sim game to come onto my radar.
Yes, I'll be playing more Bombshell. In fact, I'd be surprised if it didn't end up on my top-ten list this year. There are currently eight slots left, and it's only February!
Is it the Bloodborne of isometric, alien-bashing action?
Bombshell is a tough game. It's possible to blunder into areas that you're under-leveled for, which is never a good time, and the aliens hit hard in any case. Fortunately, this is an RPG, so I have every expectation that the difficulty curve will flatten out as I upgrade my weapons.
Is it Bloodborne-tough, though? I wouldn't say so. It's more like 1990’s FPS tough, which is still pretty tough. On a scale of Duke Nukem 1 (the platformer) to the original Shadow Warrior, I'd rank this one solidly between The Manhattan Project and Duke Nukem 3D. A definite challenge, but not insurmountable and certainly not punishing.
At least, not so far. I may change my tune after I've encountered a boss. But then, I'm armed with a minigun that shoots explosive ammunition. I'll probably be just fine.
Comments
I expect half the negative user reviews are about the price being $40.
How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?
MilkmanDanimal wrote:You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.
You're playing Duchess Nukem because this was explicitly going to be a Duke Nukem game, but 3D Realms had to change the protagonist since Gearbox now owns the rights to Duke.
The Konami Code taught me everything I need to know about sex.
So what you're saying is that I get to have this, and potentially another Duke Nukem game when Gearbox decides to make one?
Now I'm even happier!
Jonman Wrote:
Yes, you can cancel Darksiders, but only by using your Sony Golds. Which, while pretty good, aren't a patch on Zelda.
I'm A Steam Curator!
I wouldn't hold your breath for Gearbox making one anytime soon. In July Pitchford said they've done concept development on a new one, but it sounded like they're more interested in licensing it out to a different developer than in making it themselves.
The Konami Code taught me everything I need to know about sex.
Coincidentally, I noticed only the other day that Pathways Into Darkness had been re-released for OSX, so I've been replaying it... and it's been so much fun to relearn the actually difficult skills of dodging projectiles, and having to efficiently predict turns with the keyboard so that monsters can't sneak up around me. A good reminder that limited control systems are just as much fun as flexible ones.
(I just got the Cedar Box and am delighting the carnage I can now reap.)
Steam: DrNathaniel
Blizzard: DrNathaniel#1913
Oh man, I haven't thought about that game for years.
I never made it far into the game because I was still deep into my "must conserve ammo" phase, so I kept trying to take out everything with the knife.
Jonman Wrote:
Yes, you can cancel Darksiders, but only by using your Sony Golds. Which, while pretty good, aren't a patch on Zelda.
I'm A Steam Curator!