This is more of a reminiscing post than a review. I'm going to write about the Flash version of this game, which is, effectively, no longer playable. Even if you can get it to boot up, it's effectively in a dead, offline state.
It was amazing. It was a far, far greater game than SAS3. I wasn't around for its early days, but I wish it was. You could spec into reload so much that your weapons had instant reload with no cooldown. You could apply the Overclock augment to semi-automatic weapons, and combining these made the HVM MPG, a Rocket Launcher, an absolute demon of a gun. If you specced into speed high enough, you could clip out of bounds and end levels early. With strong enough guns, you could break open the entrance to the grocery store at the start of Zombie Pods and run through the level much faster. This was a very special game, this top-down shooter with insane optimization for builds. Even after the Fast Movement nerf, you could still hit crazy speeds. You could get armor high enough to get 99% resistance on all 3 damage types. You could make a Suicide Medic that would die, throw out high-level medkits using Final Farewell, and revive extremely fast and repeat the process.
The game wasn't perfect, you definitely had to play quite a bit to get to the good levels. I definitely have hundreds of hours in this game (no way to check anymore) and never even hit level 100. The strongbox system was far from perfect too, you could get something truly beautiful like a HIKS S300 with some garbage augments like Skeletonized or Biosynthesis, and you just had to live with it. ZX840, if you're reading this, I still think Biosynthesis is bad regardless of what you think.
This game had another feature that Ninja Kiwi very sadly lacks nowadays: full text chat. Whether it was strangers in a public game or playing with my buddies, it was such a joy to be able to communicate freely (aside from the heavy censorship filter) and made the game so much more endearing. I even miss saying what strongboxes I got at the end of the game (in the form of something like: 112348).
Nightmare Mode. Oh my God I loved this mode so much, it was like crack to younger me. Every enemy was insanely buffed up, there were far more boss encounters, but you got absolutely ridiculous rewards in exchange. You unlock it at level 35, but you will barely be able to function in it until around level 50. Even with the 5-tickets-a-day system, I would play this mode ALL the time. This game had a really special way of being just unhinged enough in the right way. Even though sometimes I'd lose cause a Nightmarish Dark Minion Apex Runner jumpscared me because I couldn't see it in the foreground, it was still fun.
This game had such a fun variety of guns as well. To this day, the standard Lone Star is my most damaged weapon in the game, being one of few to I had to hit the 32-bit integer limit. The Mustang, Gebirgskanone, Shredder, Hotspot, Stripper, and oh god the 1887 Shockfield my BELOVED. I had so many fun guns in my inventory, I do wish there were more slots available cause it always killed me to get rid of some of them.
I guess I should criticize it, too. This is less of a criticism of the game than the player base: I despised how every. Single. Multiplayer game. Was done on Pods. Nobody every wanted to play anything but Pods. Pods Pods Pods Pods. It's a fun map, but I definitely got tired of it sometimes. And if you picked an actually fun map like Ice Station everyone would just leave. Shoutout to Nightmare maps which chose a random one, made it way more fun, even if you could look into your cache to see what the game was loading. But it was still tolerable cause people would take anything that wasn't Last Stand.
What I truly hated was this game's end cycle. Championships were one of the worst things ever added to a game. You had this shitty contest that was INSANELY grindy that lasted a week I believe, and for getting top 3 you get a disgustingly overpowered weapon that invalidates the whole game. It's so unbalanced and stupid. Fuck the HIKS M1000 in particular, that thing should be put down. I didn't care for the crafting system either, it was nice but felt really cheap getting whatever I wanted, I missed the Strongbox system where I would hope and pray more. It did let me get a 10/3 HVM 001 though, which I used all my Elite Cores on. Got some good reactions out of people in lobbies.
More than anything, I miss the Ninja Kiwi community. Back when the website had a profile feed and forums, and you could Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down posts, and the higher level you were, the more your votes would count. I miss a lot of the people from there. Won't name too many names, but if you were there, you were there. I remember always hoping that Rohan would accept my friend request, cause to me, that was like a status symbol. Alright, I'm getting off-track now.
I guess I should mention this here Steam port of the Mobile version, huh? Well, I don't care for it. The score I gave is for the Flash version. This version is way less cool aesthetically. I have no idea why for this, BTD5, and BMC, Ninja Kiwi thought the mobile ports should be the ones ported to Steam when they look much worse. Additionally, this version doesn't have Ice Station or Meltdown, but it does have a really funny car level which is cool. If I had to put it to words, this version is like a sauceless SAS4 Flash. It feels dry. And with a game dry like that, the long level-up times aren't easy to bear through.
You can find the Flash version on NInja Kiwi Archive, but you can't get any multiplayer games, so what's the point. The multiplayer is the heart of soul of this game.
Alright, reminiscing over. Thanks for reading, or thanks for scrolling straight to the bottom. I don't really care which you did.
It was amazing. It was a far, far greater game than SAS3. I wasn't around for its early days, but I wish it was. You could spec into reload so much that your weapons had instant reload with no cooldown. You could apply the Overclock augment to semi-automatic weapons, and combining these made the HVM MPG, a Rocket Launcher, an absolute demon of a gun. If you specced into speed high enough, you could clip out of bounds and end levels early. With strong enough guns, you could break open the entrance to the grocery store at the start of Zombie Pods and run through the level much faster. This was a very special game, this top-down shooter with insane optimization for builds. Even after the Fast Movement nerf, you could still hit crazy speeds. You could get armor high enough to get 99% resistance on all 3 damage types. You could make a Suicide Medic that would die, throw out high-level medkits using Final Farewell, and revive extremely fast and repeat the process.
The game wasn't perfect, you definitely had to play quite a bit to get to the good levels. I definitely have hundreds of hours in this game (no way to check anymore) and never even hit level 100. The strongbox system was far from perfect too, you could get something truly beautiful like a HIKS S300 with some garbage augments like Skeletonized or Biosynthesis, and you just had to live with it. ZX840, if you're reading this, I still think Biosynthesis is bad regardless of what you think.
This game had another feature that Ninja Kiwi very sadly lacks nowadays: full text chat. Whether it was strangers in a public game or playing with my buddies, it was such a joy to be able to communicate freely (aside from the heavy censorship filter) and made the game so much more endearing. I even miss saying what strongboxes I got at the end of the game (in the form of something like: 112348).
Nightmare Mode. Oh my God I loved this mode so much, it was like crack to younger me. Every enemy was insanely buffed up, there were far more boss encounters, but you got absolutely ridiculous rewards in exchange. You unlock it at level 35, but you will barely be able to function in it until around level 50. Even with the 5-tickets-a-day system, I would play this mode ALL the time. This game had a really special way of being just unhinged enough in the right way. Even though sometimes I'd lose cause a Nightmarish Dark Minion Apex Runner jumpscared me because I couldn't see it in the foreground, it was still fun.
This game had such a fun variety of guns as well. To this day, the standard Lone Star is my most damaged weapon in the game, being one of few to I had to hit the 32-bit integer limit. The Mustang, Gebirgskanone, Shredder, Hotspot, Stripper, and oh god the 1887 Shockfield my BELOVED. I had so many fun guns in my inventory, I do wish there were more slots available cause it always killed me to get rid of some of them.
I guess I should criticize it, too. This is less of a criticism of the game than the player base: I despised how every. Single. Multiplayer game. Was done on Pods. Nobody every wanted to play anything but Pods. Pods Pods Pods Pods. It's a fun map, but I definitely got tired of it sometimes. And if you picked an actually fun map like Ice Station everyone would just leave. Shoutout to Nightmare maps which chose a random one, made it way more fun, even if you could look into your cache to see what the game was loading. But it was still tolerable cause people would take anything that wasn't Last Stand.
What I truly hated was this game's end cycle. Championships were one of the worst things ever added to a game. You had this shitty contest that was INSANELY grindy that lasted a week I believe, and for getting top 3 you get a disgustingly overpowered weapon that invalidates the whole game. It's so unbalanced and stupid. Fuck the HIKS M1000 in particular, that thing should be put down. I didn't care for the crafting system either, it was nice but felt really cheap getting whatever I wanted, I missed the Strongbox system where I would hope and pray more. It did let me get a 10/3 HVM 001 though, which I used all my Elite Cores on. Got some good reactions out of people in lobbies.
More than anything, I miss the Ninja Kiwi community. Back when the website had a profile feed and forums, and you could Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down posts, and the higher level you were, the more your votes would count. I miss a lot of the people from there. Won't name too many names, but if you were there, you were there. I remember always hoping that Rohan would accept my friend request, cause to me, that was like a status symbol. Alright, I'm getting off-track now.
I guess I should mention this here Steam port of the Mobile version, huh? Well, I don't care for it. The score I gave is for the Flash version. This version is way less cool aesthetically. I have no idea why for this, BTD5, and BMC, Ninja Kiwi thought the mobile ports should be the ones ported to Steam when they look much worse. Additionally, this version doesn't have Ice Station or Meltdown, but it does have a really funny car level which is cool. If I had to put it to words, this version is like a sauceless SAS4 Flash. It feels dry. And with a game dry like that, the long level-up times aren't easy to bear through.
You can find the Flash version on NInja Kiwi Archive, but you can't get any multiplayer games, so what's the point. The multiplayer is the heart of soul of this game.
Alright, reminiscing over. Thanks for reading, or thanks for scrolling straight to the bottom. I don't really care which you did.