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Review by Zigfried
July 15, 2009
Hell yeah, Badman! You bet I've awakened, and I'm going to wipe the floor with your resource-balancing, tactical-action, ecosystem-simulation puzzle game! I'm the master of monsters. I've studied the ancient art of war. I've conquered solar systems and mastered Orion. That's right -- not even the stars escape my control. A punny name and a clever blend of genres isn't enough to daunt my undaunting spirit.
With stout heart firmly rooted in stout chest, I immediately set to work. "SCREW TRAINING!" I booted up the story mode, dug winding tunnels beneath the Earth, and populated my subterranean dungeon with slimes and beetles. A valiant adventurer, his sprite ripped straight from Dragon Warrior, soon abandoned the Inn's safe haven and declared his heroic intent.
"All the guys love me!"
Frightened by this uncalled-for invasion of privacy, Badman begged me to safely obscure his vulnerable body deep within the dungeon. Unfortunately, my dungeon was sorely lacking in depth. A short corridor stretched a few paces downwards. At the end of this corridor was a fork. To the right, I had dug another short, linear corridor. To the left, I had hollowed out a large chamber full of moss-covered pillars. I made Badman stand at the end of the short hallway to the right, in plain view, seeing as pretty much everything was in plain view.
Upon entering my failure of a maze, Shota quickly walked down the first corridor and reached the fork.
"Turn left."
Shota turned left and hacked a slime to death . . . then faced the wall again.
"Turn left."
Shota turned left and hacked another slime to death. He faced the wall.
"Turn left!"
Shota turned left and walked towards the pillared Chamber of Doom.
"HAHAHAHA! YOU FOOL, YOUR FATE IS SEALED!"
As Shota stepped into the empty chamber, I dug through a dozen moss-covered pillars, unleashing a swarm of slime upon the novice dragon warrior. He died.
For the next round, I expanded my dungeon and re-animated Shota's skeletal corpse. After another easy victory, the difficulty suddenly spiked during the third round. The two adventurers -- spellcasters who could heal themselves -- tore through my slimes and bugs and even my lizardmen. Worst of all . . . they nabbed the Badman. As the two heroes dragged my vampiric charge towards the surface, I used my remaining "dig power" to unleash a horde of slimes. Alas, these heroes of the lance were too powerful to be slain by mere sludge.
Badman placed his faith in the wrong god. As he was dragged out of the dungeon, bound and cursing my incompetence, I wept. The game forced me to restart from the very beginning. The next time Badman was beaten, I shed but a single tear. Again, I had to restart from the beginning. With each successive failure, my heart hardened until I became a stonecold, badass failure who didn't care anymore.
Then something wonderful happened. I gave up and went back to training mode . . . and discovered the challenges, a series of clever scenarios with unusual goals (such as breeding twenty lizardmen or making Badman's daydreams come true) that had become unlocked during my repeated story mode blunders. As I completed these challenges, more appeared, culminating in the diabolically difficult Final Fantast-icky 13. No, I did not beat that one.
The challenges provided a more structured environment to train my brain, as opposed to the story mode's endless barrage of invasion (although it actually does end . . . then segues into a second quest). During the challenges, I learned the fine art of Lilith breeding and slime mastery. Holy Invasion of Privacy! was not just a two-dimensional Deception, it was actually an ecosystem simulation! There's even a pictorial of the Badman Food Chain. Lizardmen eat bugs to lay eggs, bugs eat slimes then pupate, and slimes enrich the soil to produce more slimes. And dragons eat everything. Dragons also poop, which is an excellent tool for slowing down speedy adventurers. The level of depth to dungeon design is both phenomenal and ridiculous, since each stage lasts mere minutes.
Story mode became much easier after completing the gauntlet of challenges, as I had learned a great deal regarding proper dungeon design (my early effort described above was horribly inefficient). Unfortunately, once that was over . . . it was over. Ten hours of blistering entertainment ended with a total lack of desire to ever touch the game again. There's an edit mode in which you can create your own heroes to challenge custom dungeons, but it's more of a novelty than a serious inclusion.
Fortunately, Badman only costs $20. Unfortunately, the only way to get it is to download it from the PlayStation Network. If the digital dreamworld blossoms as Sony hopes with their PSPgo, then people will be watching their wallets and purchasing fewer games since they won't be able to rely on trading or selling. I doubt people would purchase Badman if they could spend $20 to download the new God of War or Killzone instead.
But until that dark day comes, a few download-only games here and there won't kill anyone.
Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I Do To Deserve This?, on the other hand, will kill you. Often. For a while, you won't mind. The retro graphics, retro music, and crazy monster-breeding are as charming as any self-proclaimed "hardcore oldschool" gamer could hope. Unfortunately, none of the game modes really let those who persevere run wild with their hard-earned skills; the time limit is too restrictive and the story mode's soil simply isn't fertile enough to raise a massive army befitting the God of Destruction.
//Zig
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Most recent video game reviews written by Zigfried
One Chance (PC) [February 26, 2011]
Canabalt (PC) [February 23, 2011]
Splatterhouse (PlayStation 3) [December 09, 2010]
Rad Mobile (Arcade) [November 21, 2010]
Super Sprint (Arcade) [November 07, 2010]
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