ic-games Review - Armed And Dangerous - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Armed And Dangerous - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Armed And Dangerous

Information
Reviewer: James Collins
Developer: Planet moon
Publisher: Activision
Reviewed: Xbox
Genre: Third Person
UK Release: 27th Feb 2004
Article Date: 26th Feb 2004
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price:
Price Comparison:
Armed And Dangerous

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 81%

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Pros

Brilliant and Funny story

Tidy Graphics and voice Acting

"Tokens" system adds life

Cons

Limiting

Screenshots

22 of 54

Armed and Dangerous puts you directly in the role of Roman, leader of the “lion-hearts” This four-member group of unlikely hero’s also feature a Scottish moleman named Jonesy, a British robot named Q, who loves nothing more than a good scrap and a cup of tea, and last (and by all means least), a stinky little blind man named Rexus.

On paper Armed and Dangerous looks far more involving than it actually is, on the way to bring back the sacred “book of rule” you’ll encounter all manner of quests from saving peasants to destroying robots and blowing up all manner of houses and objects. To help you achieve this on some missions you’ll be equipped with other members of the “Lionhearts”. While you never actually gain control of the squad yourself, you can issue orders to attack a certain area which does come in useful at times. To clear an area you’ll be given specific goals and only when these goals are achieved will your mission progress. And you’ll be rewarded with another slice of the brilliant story. Then it’s off to blow some more stuff up.

The game's story is told through FMV cutscenes, and it's here undoubtedly where the game scores the biggest hit comedy wise. The actual story being told in “Armed and Dangerous” tells a simple tale of rebellion and anarchy against an unruly king, but it does it with such gusto that you can’t fail to be impressed. There is a hell of a lot of “Monty Python-esque.” laughs hidden into the script, and for the most part you’ll be laughing out loud with the game and the game's quirky sense of humour. For once its actual humour and not dry, badly written jokes that some games seem to thrive on to draw laughs (Postal 2 anyone?). Planet Moon really do have a talented bunch of script writers on their payroll.

The weapons that can be found in the world of “Armed and Dangerous” are both varied and unique and in keeping with the humour. There are some obvious choices with the tried and tested machine gun, rifle and sniper rifle but the majority of the arsenal on offer are unique to the game. Our own favourite had to be the “Shark Gun” which can only be fired when there is enemy activity around. But once activated, a mini shark is ejected towards the foe. The gun's mechanics cause the shark to grow on its flight path to its full size in seconds and home in on its intended target. Once under its target, the shark bursts from the ground in a scene resonant of “Jaws3D” and swallows the enemy whole. It really has to be seen to be believed. The “Vindaloo” rocket launcher is perhaps one of the most useful and prudent however and comes in two flavours, two rocket and four depending on how destructive you feel. The weapon with the nicest graphical effect would have to go to the “Topsy Turvy Bomb” Activate this and the whole world gets turned upside down except you, and all the enemies fall to the ground (or is that the sky?) and become easy pray under the disorientation. There are many more to find and play around with but we don’t want to give too much away, just be under the understanding that they are all as wacky as the ones mentioned.

While your busy chewing away at all the countless (and relentless) grunts with your machine gun, crazy developers Planet Moon have thoughtfully included a save point during most missions. Not to be conventional however, the save point takes the form of a medieval pub. Here you can save your game and re-arm (or even change weapons) in preparation for the rest of the mission.

Once the game has been completed it’s probably still not over (not unless you have been particular observant while playing the single player game) as hidden in each one of the 21 missions is a special token. Each one found will bring something new to the game from bonus new levels to big head and feet modes. One of the secret levels “Gauntlet” doesn’t sidetrack too much from the standard levels as it pits you against thousands of grunts with the sole purpose of staying alive for five minutes. Experienced gamers will probably take around 15 hours to polish off the single player portion of the game but with the token system we believe you could chalk in at least thirty hours with this one.

There are a few slight problems, after you strip away all the great humour, voice acting and FMV you really only have a rather basic game left, the premise not far away from the days of space invaders where you must gun down waves and waves of enemy attacks, obviously it’s far more graphical nowadays but It’s pretty much the same with Armed and Dangerous. And while levels are split up between mowing down soldiers using a jetpack, to slaughtering enemy’s whist saving peasants or destroying certain houses you can be sure that it will probably involve destroying a wave of something with a token side quest thrown in to try and cover up the repetitiveness of it all.

But while Armed and Dangerous biggest downfall might be that the title is limited in appeal and only really concentrates on bringing down waves of enemy attacks one after each other, it’s all been done with so much enthusiasm that it really doesn’t seem to matter. Time and time again we laughed at the story FMV, we laughed while we played and we just had to keep on playing and playing until we had completed the game and watched the final scenes. Can we say the same about the majority of games out there? We certainly can’t, and that’s why Armed and Dangerous (like Giants before) might play a little slow at times, but still manages to bring in a more than healthy portion of game play to open our eyes to what games should be like, having some honest fun. Smiling while your having fun is optional, but at least Planet Moon gave us that option.

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