Game review: Bust-N-Rush

Ever wondered what it felt like being a 7 foot tall man with shoulders the size of bowling balls ploughing through hundreds and hundreds of walls, rocks and robots at breakneck speed?

Well with Techtonic Games’ Bust-N-Rush for the PC you can.

This little company from Santa Barbara, California, USA, has created quite a gem here adopting the 3D runner style gameplay you would usually find on Tablets or mobile phones.

These types of games are dangerously addictive, making the player want to beat a previously achieved score or collect that item you persistently continue to miss.

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There is a faint storyline in place here which is the player controlled character Kovo, who once used his brute strength and blinding speed to mine his home world Thurl.

Kovo has since settled down along with his pal, a plastic flamingo ornament named Paco and lives their lives in peace underground whilst on the surface of Thurl rules the evil Satellite of Wub.

One day whilst searching the tunnels for Kovo and Paco, the Satellite of Wub discovers and destroys Paco in an attempt to lure Kovo out of hiding.

The plan works, however, not as it was planned. Kovo is one ticked off man and will stop at nothing to avenge the demise of his plastic pal, and so the quest begins.

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The story is only vaguely told in a cinematic shown at the immediate starting up of the game and is nowhere else to be found throughout and with a mediocre and outrageous story such as this, it soon leaves the players mind.

Bust-N-Rush takes on a 3D cartoony cel-shading graphical style with objects emitting different coloured outlines corresponding between smashable, unsmashable and collectable objects.

Smashable being outlined blue, unsmashable being red and pickups being yellow.

The visuals are beautiful with the settings cranked up giving Kovo a menacing look as he goes on his rampage and the stages are sharply detailed whether it’s underground or surface levels.

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You do however need a remarkably powerful PC for it to be able to handle the gorgeous graphics and the onscreen action as things get hectic quickly resulting in annoying frame rate drops if playing on a substandard PC.

This game is reminiscent of popular mobile phone title Temple Run. The main premise of the game requires the player to last as long as possible as Kovo continuously runs forward without the possibility of stopping.

Not smashing into red coloured objects and jumping over gaps successfully causes Kovo to gain momentum and speed up.

The controls are effortless and can be played using only one hand, keys “A” and “D” moves Kovo left or right, key “W” enables Kovo to shoulder barge robots and holding onto this key makes him speed up, key “S” slows Kovo down and the space bar causes Kovo to jump.

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The controls work well although it’s far too easy to overcook the left or right keys making Kovo step left or right twice rather than the intended once so you literally have to tap them quickly which causes frustrations beyond belief and I often found myself dying unintentionally because of it.

The tutorial takes place when a game mode is selected for the first time and is in the form of skippable video clips explaining the mode selected as well as the controls and some tips and tricks to help you... very handy.

There are 3 stages on offer here in 3 different game modes.

Quest mode require the player to complete objectives, mainly collecting a certain object during the level to gain points to enable Kovo to level up, survival mode is an endurance test to see how far the player can get without dying and bust-a-friend mode which is a form of multiplayer distributed over social networking sites to compete against friends.

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The three stages differ only in visual design and obstacle placement however each stage gets steadily tougher as the player progresses.

I didn’t feel there was enough content here to keep me interested, for example, another playable character and a few more levels would have been nice and boss stages that could have adapted a kind of style that would give Sonic the Hedgehog a run for his money.

Summary

Techtonic Games have succeeded in creating a beautifully designed and incredibly addictive title that is really hard to put down. I can’t fault Bust-N-Rush’s simplistic gameplay enhanced by collectable buffs in game causing things to get crazy fast and I loved it however the bizarre yet forgettable story and a few minor frustrations makes this game enjoyable in short stints only.

I score Bust-N-Rush 3/5.

Bust N Rush

Developers : Techtronic Games

Publisher: Techtronic games

PC

MAC

Genre: Arcade runner

Release date: 14th September 2012

Graphics 4/5

Story 1.5/5

Gameplay 4/5

Overall 3/5

©theleet

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