tinyBuild sure does send us a lot of stuff. Total honesty, it’s almost hard to keep up with it all. But keep up we do, and the latest is Streets of Rogue; a street fighting roguelike.
If you’ve played any of the more recent roguelikes, chances are that you know the drill. In essence, you need to make it through an area in a single shot without dying. Sometimes that’s easier said than done; on any given level, you’re given up to 3 random quests to complete. Or not; It’s entirely possible to screw up and kill someone you were supposed to protect.
Regardless, if you do, it lets you know that it’s time to move on. That said, there’s always some extra mischief to get up to on a given stage. It may not be required, but raiding safes and chests do have their benefits. Not to mention completing tasks to unlock new character classes.
One of the different things about the game that I like is that there are benefits to switching up your character. You can play as a cornucopia of classes, and they don’t all focus on combat. Sure, the Soldier starts with a bunch of weapons and durable stats, but at the end of the day, almost every character can get a gun or weapon. The Hacker, on the other hand, can hack computers from a distance as an at will power; normally, an action requiring a hacking kit.
Sure, he can get battered around much worse since he’s a nerd with a laptop. But you can also work over slot machines, ammo dispensers, and most other forms of machinery with that laptop. You can easily wind up rolling in dough and wanting for nothing, with slight weakness as your trade off.
It’s nice that every class is relatively viable in it’s own way. Sure, some have a much easier early game, but can you go the distance with them? That’s up to your skill. The first time I made it through the slums was by punching my way through them as a gorilla.
But the gorilla needs to be unlocked first, and he can’t use guns, which is highly anachronistic, but whatever. The point I’m making is that there’s no one right way through the game, though some make certain aspects easier.
The story is mostly humorous pretense. You’re on a mission to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia the Mayor. Why? Because he did the same thing politicians have a tendency to do; pull a 180 on their campaign promises.
In this case, running on a pro party and booze platform, and cracking down with some form of prohibition. The gorilla cares because banana daiquiri’s, or something. Look, it’s the sort of game where someone gets so excited they literally explode. It ain’t high art, but it serves its purpose.
It’s may be a small thing, as well, but considering that it’s normally a pet peeve of mine I have to bring it up. The game has gamepad support with rebindable keys. And a manual option to switch between mouse+keyboard and gamepad. Which is overall a good thing, since x360ce let me down once again, based on my limited experience with Xbox controller button placement.
I also feel it necessary to mention the soundtrack. You’re not likely to get the slums theme out of your head anytime soon. Overall, given a cursory listen, the tracks capture the feeling of old sidescrolling brawlers fairly well. You won’t be disappointed with that.
Overall, Streets of Rogue sort of mashes two genres together fairly well, with very little compromise between the two. You get the feel of old brawlers, with the randomness of a proper roguelike. Sure, getting frustrated is a given with the latter genre, but failure doesn’t sting quite as badly as it does with other such games. I’d give it my recommendation pretty much any day.
Pros:
+ Classes have a fair amount of balance… in their lack of balance
+ Weapon deterioration isn’t unfair, as your fists are always viable
+ Humorous, light story
Cons:
– I’d still expect a crowbar to last longer than a few swings
– Shop items tend to be somewhat expensive early on
Preview
*A copy was provided for this game for review
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