Review: Armed and Dangerous

Armed and Dangerous is an old (2003) game by Planet Moon Studios, who also did Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I don't know which came first, but even only playing the demo of Giants, I can see the similarities. Anyway, I finally got around to giving the game a run through on Easy (or Tourist Mode, as I like to call it) and came away with the following impressions.

Gameplay
The controls were fine. Running, jumping, and popping heads was easy enough. The camera leans when you turn, which was disconcerting until I realized what was going on. The weapons are okay, although the feedback to tell where you're hitting with bullet weapons is a little weak. Little jagged yellow cartoon bubbles would have been nice. Also, the shark gun isn't really very useful as it takes forever to kill and only lets you carry two rounds of ammo.

The difficulty, on easy mind you, was fine. Enemies generally dropped more health than I needed and only lingering under artillery would make me end up dead. There was a problem in one mission where you're supposed to stop paratroopers falling from zeppelins from destroying a village. It was completely frustrating until I found the right mounted gun to wipe out the zeppelins before they could drop their passengers. Then it was completely dull.

Theatrics
Armed and Dangerous has some funny cut scenes with writing well above average. The voice acting and directing are also very good. The characters are fairly broad, which is to be expected in a comedy but still a little disappointing, as the game made me come very close to giving a damn about them.

Aesthetics
Being an older game, Armed and Dangerous is pretty blocky. I grew up on games with even lower rez, but it might bother some people. The settings in Armed and Dangerous are varied, if not particularly stunning. There are some wave crashing effects near the end that I haven't seen done elsewhere. The main characters are well rendered and animated. A lot of the models have an odd look, almost like scanned in miniatures or prerendered sprites. Speaking of prerendered, the cut scenes are a little barren, as well, but serve their purpose.

Final Score a three.

Out of five.