Have you ever wondered what it will be like when the end of civilization as we know it finally goes down? Do you think it will end quickly, in a flash, like the dinosaurs? Maybe you think that small pockets of people will survive, living day to day like in The Walking Dead, or that we will simply kill one another other, fighting over the last bit of resources. State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem throws the player in the midst of an alien invasion, leaving most of the population as looters despite the impending threat from the stars.
The first thing you’ll notice about the game is the distinct minimalist visual style. Every asset and character appears like they were ripped from the doodles of an angst ridden teenager, with most items being a single color and many depicted in a black and white style. Some might call this lazy, as the background is almost entirely white on a good chunk of the levels, but I feel like this was a conscious design choice. It makes the pickups and the enemies you’ve already dispatched easier to decipher, since the game rains enemies down on you like you’re the best looking dancer at a rural strip club in the middle of the week. The one questionable choice in regards to aesthetics is that many of the items shoot bullets the size of a single pixel, making it extremely difficult to avoid a barrage of bullets at times.
The game plays as a strange hybrid of an open world game in the vein of the original GTA with wave based top-down shooter mechanics. You can take as much or as little time as you want, progressing from point A to point B through the game’s 48 levels, but the longer you stay in a single area, the more enemies the game throws at you. Each level is going to include one or more objectives or it will pit you against a boss. These are repeated throughout the game’s length, which makes the game suffer from getting repetitive fairly early on. You’ll either be making your way through an increasingly destroyed city, attacking a boss character in a bank, chasing down a rogue UFO, taking down a bigger UFO that is summoned after the first is defeated, attacking the aliens on a strange otherworldly planet, or battling it out in space while piloting a spaceship and then repeating the same sequence of events over and over until reaching the game’s final boss. Along the way, you will unlock new abilities and guns as well as face new enemy types, but the majority of the changes are minor and rarely impacts the game in any meaningful way.
Starting out you’ll have a slow firing pistol as your only method of defense. As the game progresses, you’ll unlock the ability to go into a rage mode, dealing major damage with an increased fire rate for a short period of time, as well as a secondary firing option. Both the primary and secondary weapons will be swapped out regularly after defeating one of the many bank room baddies. Most of the weapons are pretty effective, but in the event you find one that is kind of lackluster (such as anything with “blades” in the name, which there are a few), you’re stuck with it until the next upgrade comes along as you cannot change your equipped items at any point. Killing enemies will result in XP and cash, which is necessary to upgrade your guns and character. I’m not sure if I simply got ahead of the curve, but often it felt that I was over-leveled for many of the game’s challenges, even after bumping up the difficulty to hard.
The game runs extremely well, even in the face of the massive hordes of enemies on the screen at the same time. Mechanically, the biggest issue I have with the game is the constant freezing during the load screens, which happened to me each and every time I would pull up the Xbox One menu mid-game, requiring the software to be rebooted. Making matters worse, I have encountered a few situations where my progress was not saved, requiring me to complete a few chunks of the already repetitive game multiple times.
If you can get past the repetitiveness of the game, it is a decent shooter that controls extremely well, with its vehicular controls being the only area that could use some improvement. In the city based areas, you can and will need to borrow cars that were left carelessly in the streets to make it to your destinations quickly. Not only are the cars bullet proof, they can run over large waves of enemies and allow you to clear large groups in seconds. This is not a skill that is learned easily, since the vehicular controls are tank like and very reminiscent of the original GTA that I mentioned previously.
As proof that more is not always better, the game tends to drag around the midpoint. Once finished, you’ll be able to revisit the levels with your current level and upgrades intact (unless the game forgets to save) or play again in New Game+, with the only replay value being grinding out the additional levels or upgrades. With no co-op option being in place, there is little to no reason to revisit this once you’ve completed it.
While far from being perfect, State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem is a fun title that offers hours of enjoyment, even if a few of them will be retreading the same ground over and over again.
8 out of 10
Pros
- Unique Art Style
- Controls Well
- Tons of Levels
Cons
- Lacking Co-Op
- A Bit Repetitive
- Prone to Freezing
- Vehicular Controls
State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem was developed by Lapovich and published by Sometimes You. It launched on PC March 31st, 2017 for $3.99, as well as on NS, PS4, and X1 August 1st, 2018, for $7.99. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of State of Anarchy: Master of Mayhem, check out the Steam page.
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