Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 11/Feb 00:01

Captain Wayne – Vacation Desperation – Review

Captain Wayne is a lot of things. He’s loud. He’s obnoxious. He’s in your face. The one thing he isn’t… is subtle. So what do you do when you’re confronted with an aggressive seafarer with a shotgun for an arm, asking you why he hasn’t gotten his place in the spotlight back in November, when Captain Wayne – Vacation Desperation was released? You give him a backlog review, of course! Story Our story begins with the titular captain supposedly winning a free vacation to scenic Orca Isle, home of the legendary Orca Stone. This quickly turns out to be a ruse, though, and a criminal group called the Killer Whales makes off with Captain Wayne’s trusty vessel, the S.S. Salty. This prompts Captain Wayne to go on a revenge-driven rampage across the tropical island. As if that wasn’t enough, detective Stanley Steel Press is on Wayne’s heels as well, as he believes the captain is behind the theft of priceless artefacts a week earlier. The detective wants to make sure the captain doesn’t get his hands on the Orca Stone. Vacation Desperation’s story revels in its simplicity, unapologetically relying on low-brow, over-the-top humor rather than narrative depth. Usually, we’re not fans of this style of comedy, but even we weren’t entirely immune to the captain’s old-school charm. Graphics The crude cartoon aesthetics of Vacation Desperation’s cutscenes catapulted us back to the Flash animations of the early 2000s. The bright, flashy, and garishly cartoony presentation reminded us of Newgrounds’ golden age, when exaggerated animation and gore were the norm. The actual gameplay takes on a slightly different visual style, with pixel art characters juxtaposed against 3D backdrops. Vacation Desperation looks rough, but this is both deliberate and unapologetic. It does mean that the game’s readability suffers, especially when things get crowded. In terms of performance, Vacation Desperation runs fairly stable and any visual hiccups were masked by the roughness of the game. Sound A good chunk of that early 2000s charm can be attributed to the quality of the game’s voice acting, or the lack thereof. The voice work comes across as amateurish, with low-fidelity audio and hammy performances. In any other game, we’d have derided the terrible voice acting, but here it’s part of the experience. Accompanying the captain on his rampage is an energetic soundtrack that blends electric guitars with nautical elements. This fits with the chaotic atmosphere of the game, but it’s instantly forgettable too. The sound effects are generally fine, albeit undermined by the overall uneven sound quality of the game’s soundscape. Gameplay Beneath Vacation Desperation’s crude exterior, you’ll find a surprisingly competent, fast-paced boomer shooter. The game focuses on chaotic, over-the-top first-person combat, characterized not only by its dark slapstick humor, but exaggerated cartoon violence as well. Taking control of Captain Wayne, you’ll need to blast your way through compact levels using an increasingly absurd arsenal of weapons, heavy movement mechanics and high-energy gunplay. Combat is bombastic, as you’ll take on large groups of enemies at once. Fittingly enough, Vacation Desperation’s mechanics aren’t particularly deep or complex. The captain isn’t one for strategy or tactics after all: he just points his gun and shoots. Resultingly, the core loop focuses on aggressive play. A good set of reflexes and sense of positioning are going to be your most important assets. Movement is a key part of gameplay. Individual levels are compact, and keeping up momentum contributes a lot to the overall feel of the game. You’ll need to make use of acrobatic mobility actions and move through levels at high speed. However, movement itself is intentionally weighty, making precision movement difficult, reinforcing the game’s chaotic tone. Also contributing to this feeling are the environments themselves, particularly in how destructible or movable objects can escalate fights into unpredictable chaos. This can be turned to an advantage, as replaying levels gives you an idea wof here throwable explosives or consumable objects are. The game leans into situations that spiral out of control, and the key to victory is to be in charge of the chaos that ensues. The meat of Vacation Desperation is in its campaign, which spans eight chapters across multiple locations and escalating combat scenarios. While the core mechanics are simple enough, the game’s difficulty doesn’t follow that same philosophy. Vacation Desperation is fairly manageable overall, but its level of challenge is inconsistent. Encounters can shift from ridiculously easy to very challenging in the blink of an eye. Of course, balance was never something this game was aiming for. Most players should still be able to complete Vacation Desperation over the course of a single evening. It took us around four hours, and we don’t consider ourselves particularly good at boomer shooters. If you manage to overcome that final stage, there’s an Endless mode waiting for you as well, where you fight continuous enemy waves and attempt to achieve the best possible score. For just under €10, Vacation Desperation offers plenty of bang (pun not intended) for your buck. Conclusion We didn’t expect to enjoy Vacation Desperation as much as we did, because of how crude and visceral the game was at first glance. Having played it, we can tell you that our first impression was wrong… because the game turned out to be even more over the top than we expected. As we got caught up in the ongoing adventures of the Captain, however, we were taken back to our teenage years. Vacation Desperation is unapologetically nostalgia-baiting, but once in a while, there’s nothing wrong with that.