Brigador: Up-Armored Edition Review
-----It’s strange when a game doesn’t click with you when you think it really should. That’s what I felt for a majority of my time playing Brigador: Up-Armored Edition. My initial interest for the game was sparked by a MandalorGaming review on Youtube, which gave the software extensive praise. Seeing as the game took obvious ques from the top-down shooter genre, mixed with Rare’s Blast Corps concept, I was really looking forward to this game. Especially with its emphasis on earning money through multiple objectives, I thought the wealth of content with my earned experience would really engage me. Yet throughout my playthrough of Brigador I never felt a decent spark. It’s odd. Especially since I caught glimpses of the aforementioned Blast Corps., but also Hotline Miami, Chopper Attack, Bangai-O, Robotron, and even Binding of Isaac. All games I love, so why not Brigador?
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-----One reason I can think of is how dryly the game is presented. I don’t mean the looks. In fact, the neon isometric pixel graphics bathed in saturated vaporwave aesthetics is something to truly admire. The same can be said for the destructible walls and buildings which crush nicely under the treads of Brigador’s well-designed tanks and mechs. No, what I mean is how outside of one moment of theatrics, Brigador doesn’t boast any real explicit narrative moments that would help motivate the player. Instead a lot of Brigador’s story is delivered through text, which isn’t bad on the surface, but when it’s delivered in such a dry and unexciting fashion for the whole game it gets old quickly. It’s not like the narrative is all that interesting either. I’d say Brigador’s story is actually kind of hard to grasp, despite it being kind of cliche within the science fiction genre.
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---Another reason I’d say I didn’t like Brigador as much as I should have is the pace at which it progresses. Brigador is mission based with marked objectives in each mission needed to complete in order to clear the level. Nothing new, and that’s the way it stays for the entirety of the gameplay. The advent of “kill 70 percent of the enemies” or “destroy these specific targets” gets old really quick. Brigador begs for some sort of shake-up in it’s gameplay that never comes. It also doesn’t help that the difficulty curve of the missions themselves is widely inconsistent, and all the levels are disappointingly short. I’d say there were a few missions in Brigador’s campaign that actually felt satisfying, and most of those came in it’s second third. As for the Freelance mode, forget it. These maps are so spacious and so lacking in enemies that I found this auxillary mode pretty boring. This is especially crushing given how unceremoniously the campaign itself just ends.
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-----Finally I’d say that the concept itself is kind of misguided. Brigador works on a firm system of slow tanks and mechs with different weapon types and play styles that are used to tackle swaths of fast enemies who work on an audio-based alarm system. It’s so easy to be overwhelmed to the point of frustration in this game. Trying to pick off enemy groups one by one doesn’t necessarily work either. Helf the time you can’t see the enemy vehicles shrouded in the game’s nighttime levels. Thus shooting at one enemy can result in the unintended consequence of alarming an entire fleet ready to chew through your shield in an instant. I found a good portion of Brigador’s gameplay to just be demoralizing.
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------Now, with all this being said, I don’t want to poo-poo all over the game outright. I do think there are some great portions of this game worth experiencing. For one, the weapon types and variety is quite well done. The same could be said of the player vehicles. There’s a lot to play around with and learn, and I really liked that. I would also say that when Brigador does work, it works really well. I loved moments when after I fought a big wave of enemies, I stocked up on ammo and shield orbs, and strategically moved onto the next group. And for what it’s worth, there has been a clear level of thought and effort put into the various mechanics and systems put into the game overall. So, overall I would say there are things to love about Brigador. It wouldn’t have had the critical reevaluation by fans over the years as it has without it’s great elements. For me however, I just can’t really get into the game. It’s too dry, too slow, too repetitive, and too hard to grasp for me to really get into it. Disappointing. - [05/10]
-----It’s strange when a game doesn’t click with you when you think it really should. That’s what I felt for a majority of my time playing Brigador: Up-Armored Edition. My initial interest for the game was sparked by a MandalorGaming review on Youtube, which gave the software extensive praise. Seeing as the game took obvious ques from the top-down shooter genre, mixed with Rare’s Blast Corps concept, I was really looking forward to this game. Especially with its emphasis on earning money through multiple objectives, I thought the wealth of content with my earned experience would really engage me. Yet throughout my playthrough of Brigador I never felt a decent spark. It’s odd. Especially since I caught glimpses of the aforementioned Blast Corps., but also Hotline Miami, Chopper Attack, Bangai-O, Robotron, and even Binding of Isaac. All games I love, so why not Brigador?
-----
-----One reason I can think of is how dryly the game is presented. I don’t mean the looks. In fact, the neon isometric pixel graphics bathed in saturated vaporwave aesthetics is something to truly admire. The same can be said for the destructible walls and buildings which crush nicely under the treads of Brigador’s well-designed tanks and mechs. No, what I mean is how outside of one moment of theatrics, Brigador doesn’t boast any real explicit narrative moments that would help motivate the player. Instead a lot of Brigador’s story is delivered through text, which isn’t bad on the surface, but when it’s delivered in such a dry and unexciting fashion for the whole game it gets old quickly. It’s not like the narrative is all that interesting either. I’d say Brigador’s story is actually kind of hard to grasp, despite it being kind of cliche within the science fiction genre.
----
---Another reason I’d say I didn’t like Brigador as much as I should have is the pace at which it progresses. Brigador is mission based with marked objectives in each mission needed to complete in order to clear the level. Nothing new, and that’s the way it stays for the entirety of the gameplay. The advent of “kill 70 percent of the enemies” or “destroy these specific targets” gets old really quick. Brigador begs for some sort of shake-up in it’s gameplay that never comes. It also doesn’t help that the difficulty curve of the missions themselves is widely inconsistent, and all the levels are disappointingly short. I’d say there were a few missions in Brigador’s campaign that actually felt satisfying, and most of those came in it’s second third. As for the Freelance mode, forget it. These maps are so spacious and so lacking in enemies that I found this auxillary mode pretty boring. This is especially crushing given how unceremoniously the campaign itself just ends.
-----
-----Finally I’d say that the concept itself is kind of misguided. Brigador works on a firm system of slow tanks and mechs with different weapon types and play styles that are used to tackle swaths of fast enemies who work on an audio-based alarm system. It’s so easy to be overwhelmed to the point of frustration in this game. Trying to pick off enemy groups one by one doesn’t necessarily work either. Helf the time you can’t see the enemy vehicles shrouded in the game’s nighttime levels. Thus shooting at one enemy can result in the unintended consequence of alarming an entire fleet ready to chew through your shield in an instant. I found a good portion of Brigador’s gameplay to just be demoralizing.
------
------Now, with all this being said, I don’t want to poo-poo all over the game outright. I do think there are some great portions of this game worth experiencing. For one, the weapon types and variety is quite well done. The same could be said of the player vehicles. There’s a lot to play around with and learn, and I really liked that. I would also say that when Brigador does work, it works really well. I loved moments when after I fought a big wave of enemies, I stocked up on ammo and shield orbs, and strategically moved onto the next group. And for what it’s worth, there has been a clear level of thought and effort put into the various mechanics and systems put into the game overall. So, overall I would say there are things to love about Brigador. It wouldn’t have had the critical reevaluation by fans over the years as it has without it’s great elements. For me however, I just can’t really get into the game. It’s too dry, too slow, too repetitive, and too hard to grasp for me to really get into it. Disappointing. - [05/10]