For those who don’t know about this, “Surgeon Simulator” was the first and arguably most famous of the joke-simulator genre that started going downhill with “Goat Simulator” and has been powerbombed into the ground with things like -ahem- “Rock simulator”. While I liked the joke I found that the intentionally shite controls got frustrating fast, and made it rather difficult to actually complete surgeries. Upon its Steam release, I did my best with “Surgeon Simulator”. Worth a look, but best wait for it to be on sale. It works well as a game to play while listening to something else or keeping an eye on a video of something, but once you’ve gone through it there’s not a whole lot to bring you back. There’s a cover system that activates the faux-3D I mentioned, and control is generally good whether you’re sneaking or shooting. The stealth works well enough and shooting while more direct does feel like I’ve messed up when I have to resort to it. There’s not a lot of variety apart from different layouts and increasingly armoured enemies, but what’s here is definitely solid. Fill it up entirely (it has multiple stages) and you have to rush to the end of the level and use a computer to stop lunar-based nuclear armageddon. You move through levels taking people out and grabbing pick-ups strewn around plot-essential plans, weapon upgrades etc. Better not make that into a habit.) It’s a stealth-action game on a 2-D plane with a few faux-3D moments (a la “Contra”). (I appear to be talking to myself in print. Worse things have happened though, maybe it’s just gameplay focused. (SPOILERS END) It’s a shame because as I said the set-up is pretty good. (SPOILERS) there’s a running theme of C.O.U.N.T.E.R seemingly planning to steal the plans and blow up the moon themselves, but it never develops into anything- you steal the plans, you stop the rocket, that’s it. I hope you got your fill from that description of the plot, because there’s pretty much sod-all else on offer. Anyway, you play an agent of C.O.U.N.T.E.R- a neutral, third-party agency that sends you into both Soviet and US bases in an attempt to discover certain parts of the plan. I shit you not- the USA did actually have a plan to blow up the moon in an attempt to show the Soviets that they were nothing to mess around with. Before we go any further, I feel it’s worth pointing out that this was a real plan during the cold war. The former really got me into it: it’s the cold war, and both the USSR and USA have plans to DESTROY THE MOON. The latter is an exaggerated, cel-shaded style in which enemy soldiers are colour-coded and your protagonist is constantly draped in shadow, regardless of the lighting. The first things that stick out about this one are its interesting plot set-up and its graphical style. This one will cover “CounterSpy” and the re-release of “Surgeon Simulator”, both on PS4. Okay, these have been a long time coming but here we go, four downloadable titles I’m going to be taking a look at over two reviews.
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