Developer Mighty Rocket offers up Final Exam, a solid 2D action title that has much greater appeal than its description. Released digitally though publisher Focus Home (which has a lot of really good games available this year) the game is available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. I played the PS3 version and enjoyed it immensely. There are some issues that I want to bring up, but those issues don’t stop the game from being highly recommended.
Recommended for grown-ups. It’s not a kid’s game. Look at the blood platter in the screenshots. This is an old school style game, at least heavily influenced by that “genre” (such as it is) and while many of those types of arcade games are appropriate for kids, this one is definitely not.
The story for Final Exam has four friends on their way to a high school reunion. Unfortunately something happens along the way and these four very different people wind up taking on an array of monsters over multiple levels. These four of course are meant to offer up different types of gameplay styles, but this is one of the things that takes me out of the game a little as their backgrounds are so different these four people would not be friends. They may know each other now, but I doubt they would be good friends and they certainly wouldn’t have gotten along together as the game implies.
Despite this leap in logic players pick a character with their preferred playing preferences and abilities and start off. I picked Nathan because of his higher health skill with explosives and weapons. Other characters are better at ranged combat, other melee, some have higher health or whatever. Over time players will build up their character’s stats and skills, but don’t think of this as a role-playing game because this is simply an arcade action style game and between levels players have the option to beef up their character a little.
Actually, that leap in logic with regards to the 4 playable characters also shows up throughout the levels as various non-playable characters show up. It’s not that these characters don’t belong where show up, but there’s simply a lack in logic with little explanation and exploration of any of the characters and their relationships. If there are so many monsters in the subway, how did that mechanic survive and why does he suddenly need our help to continue to live?
Oh well, this isn’t a game you play for its intelligent scripting.
Final Exam has a solid combat system with a variety of ranged firearms, melee weapons as well as some explosive devices which in the right hands can be quite lethal. Fortunately Final Exam offers a co-op mode allowing players to take on different characters to combat the various menaces that keep coming. 4 players online and 2 via LAN.
My biggest gripe about Final Exam is with regards to the mapping. Well, actually it’s a lack of it. Most of the levels are not side-scrolling from left to right, but instead static mazes that players need to navigate. Having some sort of mat to indicate where players have been would go a long way in keeping players from wasting time. Final Exam isn’t that long in the first place, but by not including any sort of mapping it feels as if this is artificially lengthening the time it takes to complete some tasks. Sure there’s an arrow pointing towards an objective, but when access from one floor to another is blocked and direct paths are not available most of the time, well, it can be frustrating.
Despite these problems Final Exam proves to be a fun and worthwhile download. There’s a demo for the PC so there’s no excuse to not at least try it out.