MadCap's Game Reviews - "Rad Raygun"

It is the year 198X at the height of the Cold War.  Ronald Reagan’s in the White House and unfortunately he does not have the elite hacker skills of Ferris Bueller to aid him in defeating a horde of Communist robots that are poised to destroy America.  The answer to this? A Mega Man clone!

I’m not even kidding.  The very title screen is a homage to Mega Man 2, and it’s actually pretty awesome.

But the comparison doesn’t stop there as you take on the role of a robotic soldier named Rad who is charged by none other than the Gipper himself to defeat the Communist hordes in the Middle East, Germany, and other battlefields across the world all in the name of America’s righteous anti-Communist agenda!  After all, better dead than Red, am I right?

That being said, there’s really not a lot of red in this game.  Or any color other than green and black, with the stylistic choice to make this look like an early 1980’s computer game rather than one of the Mega Man games…at least in coloring.  Personally I like the design, though it sometimes makes it difficult to figure out where Rad can stand and where he can’t.  Luckily, there aren’t any insta-kill hazards to speak of in the situation, and the developers do actually poke fun at the style.  And, as we all know, I’m a stickler for games that aren't afraid to poke fun at themselves.

But it’s a platformer, so Rad moves around (usually) from left to right while either blasting or avoiding dangers that present themselves.  You fire bolts from an arm canon to take care of enemies, which can be upgraded with disks that can be found in the game world.  Along with some power ups that allow you to refill your health from the pause menu (like that one game of a similar style…with Sub Tanks…can’t think of the name…).

And really, that’s all there is to it.  You move from left to right taking out enemies throughout a level, then you take on a boss monster at the end of every level.  As far as your mechanics go, standard platformer shooter.  No, more than that, a really good platformer shooter...with some pretty awesome throwback 8-bit music to boot (by FantomenK!)   It has some good humor that pokes fun at the Cold War paranoia of the 1980s, as well as some other political humor.  Like DLC Quest and other games in the vein that I’ve played, it is long enough to get its point across without overstaying its welcome.  It’s only five stages leading up to the ending, but it was only a dollar and I really think it was worth the investment, and I think you will, too.

Rad Raygun is now available from Trufun Entertainment for Xbox 360 and PC.

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