I Met The Doctor Last Night. – Gunslugs PSVita…
Gunslugs basically takes inspiration from just about everything cool from the ’80s. There’s even a boss battle that looks like something straight out of R-Type, a train sequence that reminds me of an old cowboy game I played on the C64 and in the arcades—the name of which I can’t remember right now…
The Doctor always seems to show up in the most unexpected places. He’s always got a plan—or at least something going on—and, naturally, he always wants your help…
Or does he?
Anyway, here’s my story. I’ve actually met the guy, and just like in the series, his appearance came as one hell of a surprise.
It was well past midnight, I was getting seriously tired, and I’d been playing on my PlayStation Vita for hours upon hours. I know… crazy!
Then, completely out of nowhere, I entered a room and was greeted by this:
The girl is, of course, me… Why do I always play as a girl? Anyway, I had absolutely no idea what I had just walked into here.
So, there I was—a girl with a gun entering a room, only to find this mysterious gentleman standing in front of a payphone. He wanted 50 coins from me and, apparently, he needed my help…
Tired as I was, I thought, what the hell, and handed over my 50 coins.
Then, all of a sudden, I was inside the phone booth and on my way into the future!
It turned out that The Doctor actually worked as a warping mechanism. Damn cool! By this point I was completely wide awake and pretty wound up, trying to process what the hell had just happened.
And then I realised where he had taken me…
Level 4-1!
WOOHOO!
Trust me, that was a very welcome surprise, because level 3-3 had been a proper pain in the arse thanks to its boss battle.
So yes, The Doctor really did show up out of nowhere, asked for my help, took my money and then sent me into the future.
Sounds about right, doesn’t it?
And this is where the real fun started…
There was a trophy tied to Level 4 where you had to find the awesomely named “B. A. Barracudas”—MR. T! …Ummm, I mean Bad Ass Barracuda, which is his actual name in the game. 😄
I played through the level slowly, searching absolutely everywhere, but I couldn’t find him.
Luckily, once you reach a new level and discover a new character, you can replay the previous levels as many times as you want. The only character I managed to find was Sonya, though.
I must have replayed that damn level about 20 times trying to get the trophy, and I still couldn’t find him anywhere!
Eventually, I gave up searching on my own and decided to look around on the internet. There was almost nothing about it out there, except for one photo that supposedly showed Level 4-1.
Hello???
That was NOT Level 4-1!
The picture showed sand everywhere with this really yellowish look to it. My Level 4-1 looked nothing like that. Mine was in space or something…
Almost like it was set in…
THE FUTURE!
Wait a minute…
The future?
OH!! THE FUTURE…
So, here was the twist…
The Doctor had taken me to the FUTURE version of Level 4-1!
And, of course, Bad Ass Barracuda wasn’t there…
TO HELL WITH THE DOCTOR!
The bloody game had glitched on me!
AAAARGH!
Or, more accurately, The Doctor had somehow messed up my game—or at least my savegame.
I continued playing and eventually completed Level 4-3, which sent me straight to Level 5-1. I found the new character there, but still no sign of Bad Ass Barracuda.
Yup. The Doctor had well and truly messed things up.
There was only one thing left to do.
I decided to go back and try to complete Level 3-3 properly, and if I happened to see The Doctor again, I was going to completely ignore him.
Sad but true. Sorry, Doctor!
After numerous attempts, I finally managed to kill that pain-in-the-arse boss at the end of Level 3-3. The game then sent me to…
Level 4-1.
Wait… WHAT?
This was a completely different Level 4-1!
THIS was the proper Level 4-1—the sandy, desert-themed level I had seen in that picture online.
And within seconds…
BAD ASS BARRACUDA!
There he was!
The Doctor hadn’t simply warped me forward a level. He had actually taken me to a future version of Level 4-1, completely bypassing the normal version where Bad Ass Barracuda was hiding.
Damn, I absolutely love ideas and concepts like this!
It was such a cool little surprise, and my God, it was funny too. The whole thing had completely fooled me. For a while, I genuinely thought I would never be able to unlock the trophy—or complete the corresponding in-game challenge.
That was especially worrying because the game only gives you three active challenges at a time, and you have to complete them one by one before getting new ones. I was starting to think I had somehow screwed up my progression permanently.
All because I trusted a strange man standing next to a phone booth in the middle of the night…
I really should have known better.
Never trust The Doctor!
If someone had told me ten years ago that retro gaming would become as incredibly popular as it is today, I probably would have laughed at them.
Back then, the industry seemed to be turning more and more into one giant FPS arena, and it felt like any studio that wasn’t following the latest big trend was slowly being wiped off the food chain.
Thankfully, indie gaming came along and changed all that.
Suddenly, bedroom coders and smaller developers had a real chance again—not only to make the games they actually wanted to make, but potentially earn some money from them too.
And that’s important, because we make games because we love making games.
Sometimes the best ideas come from developers who are allowed to think outside the box, something that isn’t always possible when you’re working for a huge company with massive budgets, shareholders, deadlines and expectations to satisfy.
And that brings me back to Gunslugs.
Gunslugs is about as indie as indie gaming gets. It doesn’t need an enormous budget or cutting-edge technology to entertain you. Instead, it knows exactly what it wants to be and stays 100% true to its roots.
In fact, this game is so ridiculously packed with ’80s influences that I could hardly believe my own eyes when I first played it.
It doesn’t just borrow from the ’80s…
It feels like it escaped from them.
Gunslugs is basically a Metal Slug-style game, and a bloody good one at that. Throw in some awesome SID-style music, loads of characters to unlock and enough upgrades to keep you busy for weeks, and you’ve got something that should put a huge smile on the face of any retro gamer.
And then there are the characters…
I’ve unlocked them all, so hopefully I’m not spoiling too much here:
If those names don’t immediately start ringing a few bells, then this game might not be the perfect fit for you. 😄
Gunslugs basically takes inspiration from just about everything cool from the ’80s. There’s even a boss battle that looks like something straight out of R-Type, a train sequence that reminds me of an old cowboy game I played on the C64 and in the arcades—the name of which I can’t remember right now…
AAAARGH!
Anyway, the game is absolutely overflowing with references, homages and shameless little rip-offs, and you know what?
Every goddamn one of them fits perfectly!
And that’s Gunslugs.
That’s also the end of my rather unexpected little story about meeting The Doctor, travelling into the future, screwing up my progression, searching endlessly for Bad Ass Barracuda and eventually discovering that the game hadn’t actually broken at all.
After everything I said earlier…
Damn, I love that Doctor!
PS:
The game can be pretty damned difficult, especially when you’re first getting into it. But believe me, it really isn’t that hard once everything starts clicking.
fixed