THE GAME
There are 3 characters in the game: Wolf, Coyote, and Fox. Each characters stats are a little different either giving you more health, more fire power, or more grenades. If you’re not any good at dodging bullets though, I would avoid using Fox as her health is really low and only takes about 2-3 hits to die. However, Fox is really fast compared to Wolf and Coyote. I would recommend Wolf or Coyote while running through the game unless you're glutton for punishment. The game does allow for co-op play and you can run through the game with all 3 players at once. Actually, you have to play with all 3 in order to get the "name of achievement” achievement in the game. Plus you need to finish it with a friend for the "name of achievement" achievement as well.
Depending on the difficulty and the amount of people playing the game will determine the amount of lives you have that is shared among the group. So if you solo the game on suicide, you only get 2 lives but if you are playing with 2 friends on the cakewalk difficulty, you will get 15 lives.
Overall the game has a clean 3D render with the drawn out characters showing their faces at different points in the game. I don’t really remember any music in the game from all the firing and explosions going on, so I don’t think you’ll notice if it is there.
THE BOSSES
TANK 1
At the end of the first board, you will fight a tank. It has 2 front gun turrets that shoot bullets at you in a straight line that you can take out easily with your grenades. A massive cannon swings back and forth on top of the tank as you expect. It will also shoot rockets down on you from the back of the tank. Just stick to the bottom right or left corner and avoid everything while shooting it.
TANK 2
The second boss is at the end of board three and is the same tank with 3 additions. The first addition is they painted it red. The second addition is they added flame throwers around the tank. So it will spew out flames either straight ahead or to the sides but it's the same spots, so stick to the corners again to avoid them. The third addition is the tank will throw out mines before it launches the missiles. Just avoid them and use your MK's if you get scared.
Structure
It’s hard to really describe what this is as it’s surrounded by some shields with wires coming down, so it’s like a computer brain in a way. At the end of the level you’ll know when you get there as you have to destroy 2 base facilities with guard towers beside them and a cement wall behind them. Once you destroy all that, be sure to destroy the middle 3 of 5 walls so you can shoot up at a better angle while walking in. What you want to do is go up and to the right to take out the gunner. Once he’s gone, go left and take out the second gunner. Keep going left and down to destroy generator #1. Go back the way you came and go up and to the left to find generator #2 to destroy. Go back the way you came and go straight across to the right but be careful to take out a third gunner. Once he’s gone head right and go up to find generator #3 to destroy. Now go back out the way you came in and go down and to the right. Once you start walking into the corridor, you run into some big guys, use your MK as soon as you see them to take them all out easily. Keep going to find generator #4 to destroy. Now that all four generators are destroyed, go back to middle where the structure is and the shields around it should be gone. Stay to the bottom middle of it to avoid most of the guys coming down. Use your MK’s when the big guys show up and just shoot the structure until it blows up.
Final Boss
The final boss is a robot at the end of board 5 that stays at the top of the screen. It will shoot a rocket from his mouth at you, it sprays bullets out all over the screen, it will shoot missiles out at you, it will shoot out 4 flame walls to restrict your movement and every now and then, slam the ground with its fist. As long as you keep moving left to right and don't stop moving except for the spray of bullets, you can easily beat him.
HELPFUL INFO
There are also hidden secrets on each board and POWs in cages that you have to rescue. Some of the POWs are actually hidden in the secret areas as well. Actually finding everything in the game can be a little tricky as you have to find all the Secrets and POWs in one run through without missing any of them for the achievements to pop. As many times as I played it through, it became apparent that playing online with friends will glitch out the POWs. So you will have to actually run through the game solo in order to get that achievement accomplished.
If you're having problems finding all the secrets and POWs, DO NOT FRET. Fafhrdd recorded me and him playing through the game and here are some video's on where everything can be found in the game.
Sorry but the video's will be up once Fafhrdd finishes them. Looks like one messed up and will have to redo it. So once it's complete, I will get them up.I do suggest you run through the game solo on the Black Ops and Suicide difficulty. Once you get into a good rhythm on the game, learn how everything works on each board, and realize you don't need to collect everything in the game as you're going through it. Just run through it and avoid what you can. It actually makes it easier running through with that strategy versus trying to find and collect everything. Stick with and use only the main gun you start with. Grab all the POW boxes to keep upgrading the gun for the wider shot and farther range. All your grenades and MK's reset on each board, so use them when you need them. Especially the MK's in parts that you know are hard to get through. The MK's also clear out all the bullets on the screen so it can save your life as well. Plus if you die and didn't use it, you just wasted them all.
CONCLUSION
If you enjoy SHUMP games, you should enjoy this game and be able to get all the achievements with just a little bit of work. It’s worth picking up as I enjoyed playing this game a bunch. If you stink at this type of game, avoid it like the plague.
