Endgame
Endgame is an futuristic action light-gun shooter which has been compared to Time Crisis games. The story is about an evil plot to use virtual reality mind-control to take over the world. The main character is Jade Cornell, a foxy redhead, whose friend Tyler has gotten too close to the truth. The game starts when Jade receives a message from him telling her where to find the gun he left in her apartment. As soon as she grabs the gun, the door bursts open .. and the first gunfight begins. The game is played out in five fast-and-furious chapters, all of which are timed. Jade will trek through exotic European locales (including the Swiss Alps and the London Underground), shooting baddies and bosses. The faster you shoot each wave of enemies the better, as the time saved is added to the next chapter. The environment is totally destructible. You can shoot pictures off the walls, shoot cabinets open and have glassware crash to the floor and otherwise wreck much of your surroundings. Also, you can cause explosions that will kill all the enemies in the vicinity. Finishing the game the first time unlocks additional modes of play and mini-games.
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Endgame plays nicely as far as lightgun games go, with the game taking most of its base mechanics from the first Time Crisis. With the player being equipped with a 6-shot pistol, and a cover mechanic to avoid enemy attacks while the game runs on a time limit through each section.
The enemy variety is decent enough, where you got your standard grunts as fodder, with special types such as instant damagers and shield enemies peppered in-between. The game however suffers from dull level design, where a lot of set pieces and enemy placements being repetitive. Unfortunately, this extends to most of the boss fights as well, where they just feel like spongier and harder versions of the existing enemy types.
It does somewhat pick up towards the end, with two bosses offering a more interesting dynamic. Including Endgame's own discount version of Time Crisis' Wild Dog (who also survives a few times before going down for good).
Sadly the final boss is just a remixed and amplified version of the enemy types again until the game decides to do its own cheap version of House of the Dead's Magician during its final phase.
I feel like the game could have been stronger if it removed and combined most of its stages together, and opted in for a shorter but tighter pace rather than just padding it with a lot of similar feeling levels.
I did enjoy at least the cheesy voice acting coupled with its cheap pre-rendered cutscenes. There are also some neat unlockables, including a mirror mode and dual gun mode alongside some challenge levels.
One thing in particular that I really liked was the game having a playable version of an in-universe game being played by the protagonist called 'Mighty Joe Jupiter'. It takes the base lightgun gameplay from the main game and wraps it around a cartoony sci-fi setting with aliens and such. It has its own campaign and even its own set of challenge modes which is nice.
Endgame doesn't really hold a candle as the game it takes its inspiration from, but it does still offer a fun lightgun shooter experience that's at least worth going through once.