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The team at KRUMB Games is soon to launch their new action, retro-Shooter Mekkablood: Quarry Assault. Inspired by the early 90s, FPS games such as Duke Nukem, Doom, and Quake. I enjoy retro-styled shooters, but I’m mainly here for the Mech aspect of it. This game caught your interest? Well, it launches on Steam on January 20th, although I couldn’t say for how much.
Warning! Please be aware this article contains gifs that may include flashing lights and patterns.
Eat lead… wait, do you eat lead?
Now, when I started Mekkablood, there wasn’t a story. But looking at the Steam page for the game here is the general gist. We play Bill, an ex-Space Farmer who owns a mining company. This eventually gets attacked by a rival called Torxcorp. They end up stealing Bill’s precious Figurines and his girlfriend Beth. Now, Bill heads out in his Mech with Rusty (his friend) on comms. Yeah, the only thing I know is during each level Rusty says some quip at Bill.
Gameplay
Mekkablood plays much like most typical retro-style shooters. Progress through the level, find the key, possibly find a secret, and exit the level. You also familiarly walk over ammo and items. What’s different, however, is having Turbo Boost, which acts as your dash/running, and your cockpit HUD’s and mirrors. The front-left screen on your dashboard shows ammo for your currently held weapon, your health, armour and shield. The screen right of that shows how much of each ammo type you have. You have two mirrors on either side at the very top of your cockpit that show what’s left and right, and on the bottom left is your rear-view mirror, which I think is a neat detail.
Mekkablood graces you with occasional checkpoints, so when you die you can choose the ‘continue’ option from the main menu and pick up from there. Get used to respawning as environmental traps, such as crushing walls, kill you upon impact. I find it odd that when a level ends, there’s no stats screen or rating system, which is a shame. You’re pretty much put straight into the next level. There’s a secret per level, but it just adds figurines to your cockpit.
Graphics & Audio
Mekkablood definitely does well with its retro look. Some of the smaller details I enjoy too, like the junk jostling around the cockpit toward your movement, and similarly so with the pilot’s controls.
That’s about where the novelty ends for me, though. While the colours are vibrant and the aesthetic is there, everything looks too samey. Most of the map designs look like palette swaps of each other, and none of them, as far as I’ve seen, have a distinctive look. One area was a warehouse, but besides a handful of crates, it looked like a generic room like the rest of the levels. At the very least adding a forklift, some catwalks, or something to make it look more like a warehouse would have helped. After a while, the levels just become a blur of saturated colours.
Longevity
Unlike other retro-shooters, we don’t get a results board at the end of each level. So there isn’t any real reason for replaying levels, besides finding the figurines hidden around. I assume there is only one figure in each level from what their page says.
Final Thoughts
Gameplay-wise, it’s fun and what you expect of a classic shooter. the weapons feel too samey and don’t look to have a difference in damage. My biggest issue is the lack of detail on level design. Most of the time it feels like I’m running through nothing but corridors with little to nothing to do.
I didn’t finish the game because of being soft locked out of the exit on the Warehaouse level. I had the key but the door just wouldn’t open up even after restarting the level and playing back up to that point. Mekkablood: Quarry Assault’s levels are very much a maze, and the coloured corridors ended up messing with my eyes.
There just wasn’t enough there for me to enjoy Mekkablood, and with the level design. That’s why I’m giving it the Bronze Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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