It is strange to see a game produced in part by a record company, but the aptly named Boom Chick Chick does get a lot of its identity from the death metal soundtrack supplied by Razorback Records. Produced by the prolific Silver Dollar Games, it gives you and 3 other players a lot of monsters to slay in a twin-stick shooter environment. Actually, twin stick is a lie. This game is one stick.
It follows the standard formula of top-down one/twin-stick shooters by throwing tons of enemies at you, forcing you keep moving and keep shooting. It does do few things differently though, most notably is the power orb. You have to stop the monsters from capturing the power orb and carrying it outside the screen.
To do this you move your character around with the left stick, while the game auto targets and shoots anything within range of your weapon. You have three weapons to cycle through, each offering a different range: shotgun, machine gun and sniper rifle. Now this is a good thing for non gamers as you don’t have to worry about pressing the wrong buttons, but taking the ability to actually shoot the gun takes a lot of the control from the player. A little too much control.
It does try to balance this by adding special powers that are activated by collecting orbs. The powers are key to surviving the game, with each one helping to solve different situations. Surrounded by a mob of monsters? Then press Y and start eviscerating your way to victory with a ten second chainsaw attack. Pesky monsters escaping with your orb? Press X and watch that orb sprout blades and spin itself back to the middle. While pressing A regains your health and B plants a handy landmine.
The chainsaw is easily the best thing about this game. Especially when you get a speed run upgrade, enabling you to fly around the small level twice as fast. The upgrades and abilities don’t do enough to take away from the fact that the game is rather monotonous. Monsters all look the same, differing slightly in colour and speed, the combat becomes stale after one or two play-through’s, the death metal soundtrack does become tedious of you are not a big fan (I’m not).
The best factor about the game is the fact that anyone can play it. This is the perfect game to fire up after the pub when you have friends round. I guarantee you and your guests will have a smile on your face and you all career around the screen with your chainsaws out. But Boom Chick Chick is a poor cousin to some of the other twin stick shooter indie games out there, offering little to draw you back in with any regularity.
VideogameUK verdict: 5/10
VGR Network
Xboxer360