Developer Octane Games latest trip is into a post-apocalyptic world where factions are at war over resources and slaves. The factions war will send the world further into chaos if not for the Wasteland Angel. A deadly heroine who uses her weapons filled card to wreck havoc on any mutant thrown her way. We got our hands on a press preview of the game via STEAM so let’s jump in our car and see how many people we can blow up.
Wasteland Angel feels like something I have played many times before. In the same style of games like the great SMASH TV, Wasteland Angel has you driving a killer car around 6 different locations with the main goal of blasting away bad guys. Waves and waves of enemies shoot your way and you have to kill them before they reach the civilians. The types of bad guys that get sent at you can range from little dune buggies to huge armored trucks that will load up on slaves. Since you are here to protect the slaves, it would serve anyone playing this game best to take out the larger trucks first. it’s pretty unwise to think of them as easy targets though as I found myself dusted several times. Each of the 24 levels will have some sort of boss battle that consists of a humongous enemy car that will lay a path of destruction just to get to you. These battles make the player think on their feet instead of just driving around in a circle for a quick kill. Some of these bosses are immune to certain types of ammo so switching to better firepower can be quite useful. In my play test the bosses were a nice break from the mundane but still could have used some more polish. The gameplay in Wasteland Angel has a very familiar feel to it even if the actual car you are driving is straight out of mad max. Sometimes it feels like the game is way too far from reality as I have never seen that big of a car make such tight turns.
During my play testing time I found myself having fun playing the game but couldn’t see myself playing for long periods of time. The game feels like a fresh coat of paint on the arena genre was slapped on an already solid genre of gameplay. When you peel back that paint you have the fun games of the past but nothing to really last longer than a 30 minute play session. Here’s to hoping that when the game fully releases there will be additional modes added to the game. With it being on the STEAM platform the possibilities of DLC is very good and a lot more could be added to the game to keep it from running into the repetitive gameplay wall. Wasteland Angel is worth the download when it releases this summer for STEAM as long as you know what to expect from an arcade action title.
