Mommy’s Best Games has been making high quality shooters for Xbox indie games since they first arrived on the Xbox 360 under the title of Community Games.  First with Weapon of Choice, then with Shoot 1Up, and now with Explosionade.  You remember Explosionade, the game that was delayed because the Xbox indie Top Downloads list was broken.  Ironically, even though the Top Downloads list was temporarily fixed, the day after Explosionade released the list broke down again, highlighting the very issue that Mommy’s Best Games had hoped to avoid.  It would be a shame if the Top Downloads list issue prevented some from playing Explosionade, because it might just be Mommy’s Best Games’ most focused and polished title yet.

GAMEPLAY

As Explosionade’s title suggests, you’ll spend most of your time making things go boom.  Most of this is performed by your war mech’s versatile grenade launcher that can fire either sticky or bouncing grenades depending on whether you tap or hold the fire button.  Assigning two weapons to the same button can often be a recipe for terrible controls, but Explosionade manages to pull it off.  Sticky grenades are best used for blasting apart the abundant destructible walls, while bouncing ones are best lobbed through those destructible holes to clear the area from enemies.  You can only fire three grenades at a time before having to wait for them to reload, preventing you from relying on their power exclusively while still reloading quickly enough that the game never slows from its explosive pace.  There are also gold bricks scattered throughout the levels which, when ten are collected, give you 30 seconds of infinite grenades to tear through enemies.

For times that require a more direct approach your mech has two other tools at its disposal: a machine gun and energy shield.  The machine gun used with the right analog stick is excellent for attacking close range enemies or peppering one of the game’s screen-filling bosses.  And since you will also aim your grenades with the right stick, there will be few times when you aren’t using the machine gun in some way.  The real star of the game, for me at least, was the shield.  As a defensive tool, the shield protects you from all damage while active.  It has some limitations, most notably the inability to fire while the shield is active, but it’s perfect for a quick rescue when a barrage of missiles are coming your way.  This would be great on its own, but the shield can also be used for navigation and as an offensive tool.  When falling you can activate the shield to bounce off of the ground, launching you into the air to reach higher platforms.  This bounce can also be used to squash enemies, which is way more fun than it has any right to be.  The shield makes it just as fun to play defensively as it is to blow everything apart, which is extremely difficult to balance in an action game of this kind.

So Explosionade is an action game loaded with powerful, over-the-top weapons.  What makes if different from Mommy’s Best Games’ last side-scrolling shooter Weapon of Choice?  It’s all a matter of scale.  Every level in Explosionade consists of a single room, with each one of those rooms being exactly the same size.  Each level also has a completely different platform layout so no two levels ever feel the same, but the dimensions and background of every level is the same.  Some may find this monotonous, but I think overall it was the right design choice for the game.  By keeping one aspect of the levels the same it allows you to focus all of your attention on using your diverse weapon set and how to best utilize them for the situation at hand.  It’s certainly a controversial design choice, and will turn off fans of Weapon of Choice’s expansive sprawling levels, but it should still please those looking for more of a classic arcade feel driven by high scores and leaderboards.

STORY

Explosionade has an entertaining  story with tongue planted firmly in cheek.  You play as Atticus, clearly the dim bulb of the military.  While everyone else in his squad is on an important mission, he’s left behind to guard the stock room.  But when he peeks inside the stock room and sees a giant war-mech just lying around, he decides to take it into the sewers for a test run.  It all has a very B-movie feel to it, and the ridiculous one-liners just go on to solidify that feeling.

STYLE

Both your mech and enemy sprites are very detailed with bright colors to help them stand out against the shades of tan in the background.  Even the smallest enemy soldier has a lot of personality thanks to the little details in his armor and animations as he runs for cover from an explosion.  This is all great if you use the zoomed-in camera option, but falls apart when you zoom out.  Zooming out fills the entire screen with the level, and in the process it becomes harder to distinguish between the smaller enemies.  The zoomed out view also shrinks the HUD to just your life bar, so you lose information like your shields recharge rate and your score for the level.  This was a pretty big issue for me because I found it much easier to manage the on-screen action using a zoomed out view, and it was a shame to miss some of that extra detail that was put into the game.  It’s still a fine looking game when using a wider view of the action, just not as fine as it looks close up.

OTHER

Explosionade is absolutely packed with options.  You can completely remap all of the controls, adjust how the HUD appears, and even change the game’s speed if you feel the action is too fast or slow for you.  Action game veterans might want to bump the speed up to the 150-200% range, but it’s also nice to be able to knock it back down again when practicing the later levels on harder difficulty settings.  On top of everything Explosionade also has 15 achievements which, while they won’t actually add to your gamerscore, will give completions something to come back for.  If achievements don’t do anything for you, then maybe vying for a top spot on the Explosionade leaderboards will extend the game’s replay value.  Not to mention that the whole game can be played with a friend in co-op, though putting two mechs in the game makes things considerably easier.

Some might find the levels a bit too restricting, but I really liked how level design was used to put more of an emphasis on your weapons.  In all, Explosionade is an excellent action game, and a steal at only 80 MS points.