Menu
Rick Ajax seems like your typical leather-wearing, croaky-voiced baddie basher. But he%26rsquo;s different. Like Neo in the Matrix, he knows he%26rsquo;s not living in the real world but inside the confines of an action comic book. And he wants out. He wants a fight with%26lsquo;The Maker%26rsquo.You see, all The Maker%26ndash; aka the artist%26ndash; does with his time is put Rick in difficult situations within the post-apocalyptic world of Toxopolis, repeatedly forcing the disgruntled character to smash endless reams of skulls, and Rick doesn%26rsquo;t appreciate that. Then a mysterious female, Lori Machete, appears claiming to be someone he knows (but has forgotten due to amnesia) and he follows her on another skull-smashing adventure, the full motives of which he%26rsquo;s not entirely sure.
![]()
Description: Unbound Saga is a Action/Beat 'em up video game published by Sony released on July 16, 2009 for the PSP.iso CRC-32: 1c71f08f.
That%26rsquo;s the start, at least, of a rather intriguing plot that, all credit due, will alone keep you interested in what is otherwise a fairly bog-standard, co-op based, side-scrolling brawler.Unbound Saga, itself a rehash of the 2009 PSP game, is immediately reminiscent of one other comic book-themed Sega classic; Comix Zone. That%26rsquo;s good thing, by the way. The game%26rsquo;s levels are laid out like the pages of a comic book, with Rick and Lori leaping from one frame to another smashing faces with comic-style%26ldquo;THWACKS%26rdquo; appearing in big letters with every landed blow.Everything plays on this comic theme and it%26rsquo;s done really well. As you fight from the grimy, sordid urban settings of early levels to secret lairs, snow caves and various other environments later, the world is detailed with a distinctive comic art style. The enemies are typically comic-like%26ndash; cheesy villains, aliens or just homeless bums who pick a fight for any reason they can invent, ignorant to the fact they%26rsquo;re about to get a plank of wood, metal canister, or whatever environmental weapons you find wrapped around their jaw.The whole time Rick and Lori crack one-liners, some of them pretty amusing with a tinge of adult humor.
You even see the hand of%26lsquo;The Maker%26rsquo; as he quickly sketches new enemies into the environment for you to smash into small paper shards. But it%26rsquo;s unfortunately more style over substance. At its core, Unbound Saga is just a no-frills brawler, with a shallow fighting system, seemingly little strategy, very little modern-day flair and many of the design flaws gaming faced in the early%26lsquo;90s.A character upgrading system that lets you purchase new moves and combos with tokens found in levels attempts to add depth to the fighting, but slow uninterruptible animations make for a slugging response from the fighters. We found the most basic combos work best. Control can be switched between the two fighters (unless you%26rsquo;re playing in two-player) and Lori%26rsquo;s more flamboyant fighting style can be more fun than Rick%26rsquo;s rather boring, by-the-book punch and kick combos, but she%26rsquo;s so weak it can be tedious.It still suffers from that age-old challenge of judging depth%26ndash; throwing weapons are near useless because you%26rsquo;re almost always an inch too high or too low to hit the target. Ever heard of auto-aim, developers?
![]()
A little help here, jeez. And in this day and age, not allowing a second player to drop in or out of the game on the fly is criminal. You have to quit back to the main menu, losing all progress in the level you%26rsquo;re playing, to get another player involved online or offline. And there%26rsquo;s no checkpoint system either%26ndash;%26lsquo;Game Over%26rsquo; means starting from the start of the level.Unbound Saga is a decent enough brawler. You get to pick up and throw homeless people against a wall, which is always fun, and the story itself is good enough to have you button-mash your way to its finale.
![]()
But its basic, sluggish gameplay is stuck in the%26lsquo;90s. In this age we expect more.Dec 10, 2010.
Hi, I’m Mike Kennedy, a Senior Producer at, and I’m here to talk about our brawler for the titled. Right off the bat, you’re probably thinking “Vogster who?” A reasonable question, considering we’ve only put out one title prior to Unbound Saga (a critically praised RTS for the Nintendo DS called Robocalypse), but with several more hot titles in the pipeline, you should be hearing about us more in the months to come.In a nugget, Unbound Saga is an old-school, arcade-style brawler that puts you in the shoes of Rick Ajax, a surly comic book tough guy trapped in a world of endless trouble. The thing is, he knows he’s a comic book character, and after 30 years of dealing with one ridiculous plotline after another, he’s had about enough. So you get to take him on an epic adventure to escape the pages of the comic in search of The Maker, the mysterious entity responsible for his daily misadventure.So why make it a brawler? Well, aside from the logical activity perpetuated by the lead character, we frankly couldn’t get enough brawlers growing up in the 8-bit and 16-bit days, and there doesn’t seem to be enough of ’em coming out any more these days. We were hooked on games like Streets of Rage, Final Fight, TMNT Arcade, X-men Arcade, Captain American and The Avengers, etc.
They were colourful, visceral, over-the-top, and tons of fun. The gameplay was easily accessible, with simple to understand controls — Punch, Kick, Grab, Throw — that could be strung together to pull off easy-to-execute combinations. There were no blocks, counter-blocks, reversals, deflections, none of those thorny hardcore fighting game maneuvers. Just the satisfaction of knocking down bad guy after bad guy in rapid succession.Sure, nobody would credit any of those early-90’s plotlines as any sort of attempt at Shakespeare, but that campiness and Hollywood-style machismo is what made them so magnetic. Mohawked street punks and muscle-bound mafia hitmen wandering gutted city streets and other action-movie settings, occasionally having to fight a kangaroo in colourful boxing shorts or a robot zombie or two it was that sort of over-the-top unpredictability that made us want to keep playing.
That and the endless head-smashing.With Unbound Saga, the team wanted to recapture some of that fun and nostalgia, but with many layers of extra awesomeness. While sticking to an accessible arcade-style control scheme and the fixed left-right perspective, everything has been ramped up with the latest technology: sharp 3D graphics, real-time physics and ragdoll reactions, real-time lighting FX, etc.
The gameplay itself has been given some extra strategic depth with the ability to switch between the two main playable characters, either Rick and Lori Machete, on the fly. Each of them has a completely different fighting style, with individual abilities that can complement the other character when things get sticky.Rick is the muscle, the tank, the heavy hitter who relies on bodyslams and brute smashing strength to get things done. Lori is more about speed, stealth, and her bag of ‘ninja tricks,’ like smoke bombs and gas grenades, to finish the job. Both characters can be upgraded through individual skill trees, allowing the player to tailor their characters with more unlockable powers and moves. Both offer unique gameplay experiences, but you’ll have to take advantage of each one’s strength to get through the campaign.In the next entry, we’ll talk about bringing the comic book world to life in our game, and how we’ve partnered up with experienced, recognisable industry talent to give our brand some authentic comic-book style.
![]() Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2023
Categories |