Developer: Paleo Entertainment

Publisher: Paleo Entertainment

Release Date: March 17, 2009

System: PC

ESRB Rating:

Official Web site

0:00 I believe I played this game for five minutes or so when cruising the CES show floor in January. I wasn't terribly impressed with my short demo then, but I wasn't terribly unimpressed either.

0:01 Crazy hip-hop infused beats play from my speakers like it's the mid-'90s, and a bare-bones title screen reads DRUG WARS BETA. I can find/create servers for the new Drug Wars online game or play the Merchants of Brooklyn single-player. I choose the latter.

0:02 Selectable difficulties are Lame, Normal, Brutal and "Oh Shi..." They don't actually type out "shit," they just use the three dots. Uh ... Normal, please?

0:03 A decently long loading screen precedes swelling string music against an oddly black screen. "In 3100 AD, global warming caused the polar ice caps to completely melt." Brooklyn becomes "a watery grave of an old civilization." Humanity connected the tops of the buildings through a network of sky bridges. Law enforcement abandoned the poor people in the "lower city." Clones from Brooklyn Institute of Technology are being used as a new working class, but they made too many and they rebelled or something. I can't make out the words ... it sounds like the narrator is speaking from an underwater phone booth.

0:05 VERY choppy cut-scene animation as a guy is led out of a cell in chains. The graphics look super-smooth, like this was a cut scene from an early-'90s game. Anyway, the big guy (me?) is led to a battle arena, where he's bloodied by the opponent. Fade to black as I hear a chainsaw. The dude cut off my hand? Holy hell! Now I'm looking up at ceiling lights as I'm wheeled into a hospital room. A big cigar-chomping guy in a suit pushes a frail doctor out of the way and fits me with a shiny, silver bionic hand. Driving rock metal guitar comes in as I'm led through a glass sky bridge. The camera pans up to show hover-cars and futuristic buildings in the sky. My shackles are undone as I step onto the open elevator and hear gentle bells from somewhere.

0:09 A quick trip to the options menu resets the resolution downward and the graphical effects back to "low." Stupid out-of-date computer. Maybe I should go the XKCD route and just play old games.

0:10 Well, everything looks really grainy and dark now, but at least it's a smooth-ish frame rate. "Hey killer. Looks like your systems are all up and running," says a robotic unseen voice. "Let's kick some ass."

0:13 The past three minutes have been spent fighting in a big black room, with hazy black enemies that look like shadows. I can barely make out their outline against the dark background. I'm thinking something is wrong here.

0:15 Hmm ... upping the brightness and contrast on the monitor doesn't help. It's still kind of playable ... I'm moving around and punching the guys jerkily, but it's not really enjoyable when I have to squint to see them.

0:16 OK, I go back into the options, lower the resolution yet again, and turn off "full screen mode." Only then, playing the game in a tiny 640x480 window, do I get the full-color display of my surroundings. And it's STILL pretty choppy. I need a new video card, that's all there is to it.

0:18 Battling four identical, smooth, shirtless guys now. The camera shakes annoyingly when they hit me. When I hit them, they fly over like ragdolls or, if I'm using my robotic hand, EXPLODE into bloody bits.

0:20 Battling a slightly bigger, bearded guy now. The controls are pretty awful ... I have to jam the right-click button five or six times to punch with my right hand, and even then sometimes my hands simply disappear instead of punching. I don't know if this is my computer's fault or the game's.

0:21 The faceless voice from before tells me my first "arm transformation" is ready. It's ... a gun! I can now shoot fiery bolts at my lone opponent, who goes down incredibly quickly.

0:22 "See that transformer up there? That I highlighted on your HUD? SHOOT IT!" I do and the scaffolding comes down, allowing me to climb up to a surrounding patio with fleeing former spectators. The faceless voice mentions my arm has "more work than Frank knows about," whatever that means. "It'll let you take down the Merchants of Brooklyn. And I can have my revenge." And why should I care, exactly?

0:24 I like the ragdoll physics on the identical, dreadlocked, suited guys that roam around this patio. I especially like the way they fly across the room when I hit them with a charged shot. I can also shoot the bartender and the scantily-clad women walking around, if I feel so inclined.

0:27 The game is telling me to pick up an item and charge it as a weapon. For the life of me I can't figure out how to do this. I walk up to a barstool, it gets highlighted like I can pick it up, I press the E key to pick it up ... and nothing happens! Ugh.

0:28 OK, so apparently I needed to jam on E five times to pick up the barstool. Duh. Of course I accidentally throw it immediately before I can charge it. In the process, I take enough shots to finally die. Not that I had a life bar or any other indication of my health/ammo anyway.

0:30 Hmmm. Now that I've reloaded from the save point, I can pick up the barstool on the first try. I charge it up with a right-click and throw it at a clock-shaped window. It explodes and I jump out onto a rooftop. As I do, my health/ammo meter finally shows up. Hallelujah! I guess I just had to scare the game straight.

0:31 The faceless voice says my life as a fighter is over, and my life as a mercenary has begun. "Your reward: Freedom. Time to start the revolution, Matteo." What if I want to go home and watch TV instead of starting a revolution. Huh? What are you gonna do about it, random voice?

0:32 The frame rate seems a bit smoother on the rooftops. I like the way the crates fall over realistically when I shoot them.

0:34 A hover-car flies by me harmlessly and parks on the rooftop. I blow it up with a half-dozen shots, because what else am I gonna do? Then, as I survey the flaming wreckage I accidentally fall off the edge of the building. An EXTREME METAL RIFF plays in honor of this ignominious death. Sigh.

0:36 I blow up a couple more cars on this replay. I realize this time that more dreadlocked guys in suits were coming out of said cars, but when the car blows up they die in the fiery wreckage.

0:37 I pick up a piece of wood and charge it up to use as an explosive weapon. For no apparent reason, it explodes mere inches from my face and I'm dead again. Double sigh.

0:38 All of a sudden, the enemies have visible health bars when I shoot them. Useful!

0:39 A rooftop basketball court full of Neander-thugs. I get down to 45 health while circling around, taking them out. Seems I missed one, though, and he gets a few shots off in the back of my skull. My insanely high health-recharge keeps me alive, though. Seriously, the damage from one shot is nearly erased by the time the next one hits me. I'm like freaking Wolverine over here...

0:41 New weapon upload: "The Roman Candle." It's a machine gun with a chargeable, rapid-fire shotgun option. Each shot is pretty weak, but those shots sure are rapid. Still, I think I prefer the really powerful but slower original gun.

0:42 I die trying to make a jump to what I THINK is the next rooftop. When I come back to life, I'm five rooftops back. Sigh times three.

0:44 This time, instead of shooting the enemies, I try running through the first four or five rooftops as fast as I can without firing a shot. This works surprisingly well as I'm barely touched before I get to the basketball court. Of course, when I start shooting I manage to walk right off the edge of the roof accidentally. GOD DAMN IT!

0:46 Ah ... apparently I was supposed to go down the rooftop access stairs instead of jumping to the next rooftop. My bad.

0:47 The walls of stairwell are absolutely COVERED in graffiti. There's not a single bit uncovered. Also, this enemy is rolling around trying to dodge my shots despite the fact that he's in a narrow stairwell. *headslap*

0:48 Just outside what looks like a dance club, now. I hear a scream and then a topless dancer falls from the sky right in front of me. "Careful with that DJ. She's part of the security system. Pretty hot too." WHAT?!?!?!

0:50 Oh, he was talking about the DJ sitting on a machine-gun-equipped hover seat in the middle of the dance floor. So that dancer falling from the sky was ... what exactly? Anyway, I dance around a bit to the beats, but that gets boring fast so I shoot at the DJ. She spins around a pointless 360 degrees before training in on me. We trade fire as I circle around and she just hovers in one place. She just barely manages to take me out before I can do the same to her. Then the game crashes to the desktop. Uh...

0:52 Luckily, the game autosaved and I'm right outside the club upon reloading. No falling woman this time. Weird. I'm smarter about my shots this time, starting with a charged attack and easily taking hover-DJ out with my initial weapon. "Well well well well ... you are even more bad-ass than I had imagined. Now get us the hell out of here." This line is delivered with all the conviction it deserves. Which is to say, not much.

0:54 A door opens to a casino floor, where I take on a few identical-looking thugs amid circular banks of slot machines. I try picking up and charging a bar stool as a weapon, but it explodes in my face AGAIN as soon as I throw it. Then the game crashes to the desktop again. You know what, screw this.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? No.


Why? Even if my video card were up to it, I have a feeling this would still be a plodding, buggy mess.

This column is based on a downloadable Steam copy of the game provided by the publisher.



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