Maybe that headline might hurt somebody, but it’s not exactly as though I’m very fit either. I eat junk food, I succumb to advertising, and I’ve got nothing to apologize for. I suppose that makes me susceptible to “extract-11″ — an additive which “has made food irresistible and mutated people into overweight raging hordes” in Super Boise 2′s Obesity Epidemic. Playing as one of the last four pieces of junk food remaining the world, you and your three other junk food teammates must survive this obesity epidemic.

Frank (a hot dog), Paco Taco, Tastee (a donut), and Jackie Eggroll star in this irresistibly hilarious twin-stick shooter. As first player, you take on the role of Frank, the hot dog. After running towards your teammates and pressing X to save them (as you will do later on in the game when they become incapacitated), the epic battle between you and the overweight patrons of the supermarket begins. Like other games in its genre, Obesity Epidemic has a whole slew of weapons including rockets, machine guns, cake bombs, shotguns, and so on and so forth. It also has different groups of enemies, such as the Starving Stoner.

Obesity Epidemic‘s tongue-in-cheek attitude is complemented well by its choice of music. While the gameplay has a very techno-oriented beat, the “Donuts” parody song from Kiid Retro at the title screen is absolutely hilarious and instantly memorable — much like Ska Studios’ I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1. But the similar style isn’t the only thing that Obesity Epidemic seems to borrow from Ska’s successful effort. Super Boise 2′s gameplay feels strangely familiar. Maybe I’m too well-adjusted to dual-stick shooters, but there just seems to be too much in congruence between the two. For example, most of the weapons are the same — the shotgun and rocket have effects that are nearly identical to Z0MBIES.

However, unlike Z0MBIES, Super Boise 2′s shooter has an entire separate game mode — Survival Epicness — and seemingly different sections within the game’s “story” mode. The first level has a section with turrets, where you and your team are supposed to survive for a given amount of seconds. In short, that section is AWESOME! I can only hope that the rest of the game also contains original takes on a familiar genre. Additionally, I think it’s pretty important to note that all four characters use flashlights to see what’s ahead of them, which is also very different than other shooters on the XBLIG platform.

Obesity Epidemic is definitely its own thing. Despite the commonality between the two aforementioned games, Obesity Epidemic manages to string together a half-hearted story that actually works. It helps to have an entirely separate survival mode, and at only 80 MSP ($1), Obesity Epidemic is one of the more entertaining efforts on the XBLIG platform.

[Try/Buy from XBLIG.]

[This is not a review. This is a first impressions piece based on less than an hour of gameplay.]

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