Review
Weekend freebie: Slashmaster
by J Nash (November 13th, 2010 at 1:49 am)
Blimey, this is a messy game.
On the Good Messy side, Zoobox’s 2D scrolling fighter is apparently sponsored by Bob’s Bladders of Blood Ltd and nothing occurs except as an explosion of chaotic mayhem. Each level lasts just long enough that you don’t care you’re chugging back and forth along the same threeish-screen-wide arena being randomly attacked from both sides until you fill your QUOTA OF DEATH.
Bad Messy: the power-ups are divorced from your inventory. What this means is that you can buy upgrades (with coins from dead monsters) for the full set of weapons, anticipating the Random Allocation Bat will dispense one you’ve powered up when you kill it.
(You have to double-jump to reach the bat and any bequeathed item vanishes after a few seconds, but the fighting’s such a dervish of punch-ups that you’ll inevitably auto-grab everything that passes. The trick is to upgrade everything to at least the first level before looking to pick a favourite.)
The power-up combos rely on your pressing Fire again (eg, a whirlwind sword comes after a straight poke and a leaping stab) so technically you can break off in the middle, but the fighting’s such an etc that you’ll inevitably be desperately trying to turn towards a sneak ambush only to find the game still thinks you want to finish your super-flashy combo on that corpse.
Boss fights are every five levels and are rubbishly cramped because they’re on top (rather than instead) of a standard minion rush.
Pretty much a heavy metal version of that disappointingly out of favour comic standby where a fight’s an impenetrable dustcloud of fists and ooyahs, Slashmaster confused me at first, entertained me for half an hour, and then I ate an apple. It’s free this weekend.
It’s a bit easy, think it only took an hour to get all the way through. But nice for free.