This is our game recommendation letter. Take it to your retailer, tell ’em Fendo sent ya.
Drill Dozer is the subject of our first Infendo Rec Letter. What’s great about this gem is that it’s a present day platformer with its old school roots firmly in the soil. It has a retro difficulty that instantly reminded me of the NES Megaman games, but blended with a very modern feel. It even has a gizmo gadgetry atmosphere similar to MM. The art direction is on point. I’m surprised Inspector Gadget wasn’t the final boss.
The drill makes this game unique. You use it to do almost everything, from turning screws to fighting enemies (great boss fights, by the way) to drilling your way through tunnels as a form of travel. It drills in reverse as well, so you can imagine some of the puzzles. Jill, the protagonist, works for a crew of thieves and therefore has lots of secret areas to explore and treasures to find. None of the treasures do anything by themselves, but once you get all of them, you unlock some useful items. The best unlockables are actually the secret areas you can purchase maps of, since you get to do more pillaging there.
Most of the fun is had with the platforming because the level designs border on brilliance. They are so clever that you might get frustrated, once or twice. You get to experience the best levels and areas only after the story is done. The story itself is one of the shortest and weakest i’ve seen, even for a GBA game. When it ends, there’s still about 40% of the game left to explore and plunder (explunder?). But like i said, that’s not what matters here. This is a straight-up, hardcore platformer that’s intelligent, stylish and fresh. Did i mention it rumbles?
Anonymous
I love Infendo, but this article seemed a little below your usual standards. It rambled, it offered few specifics, and it generally had the vibe of being written by a 14-year-old.
…Sorry!
Frisby
Well from reading this you can tell Rollin just played the game and was really excited. I wouln’t say the content is below standards, in fact id just say his review is unstructured.
peshue
Drill Dozer is a very good game. The story isn’t much of a challenge as the article says, it just gets you ready for the unlockable levels. They’re hard as hell.
Rollin
” Anonymous said…
I love Infendo, but this article seemed a little below your usual standards. It rambled, it offered few specifics, and it generally had the vibe of being written by a 14-year-old.
…Sorry! “
“Frisby said…
…in fact id just say his review is unstructured.”
Which is exactly what i was going for. Not every article on every site has to sound like it was written by the New York Times’ head writer. It was a different approach i wanted to take and i took it. Excuse me for not taking the snore-inducing, boring, lemme-talk-way-too-much-about-AI-sound-and-story-plot road. And if you don’t like it, there are other writers here who will have their takes on the Rec Letter. You can avoid mine if you please.
I’d rather sound like a 14 y/o than actually be one, who overcriticizes articles for straying from the norm and being different, under condition of anonimity.