Nasty is a fast paced 2D platform based shooter which is inspired by the classic Bubble Bobble. The evil Dr Slug and his Flying Fortress of Doom are invading earth to enslave the humans and it is up to the two heroes, Guy and Bob, to stop him. The duo must work their way through the fortress’ levels and defeat Dr Slug to save the human race.
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You start the game in a level very reminiscent of Bubble Bobble even down to the enemy, but instead of bubbles you have guns to defeat your enemy. The aim of the game is to kill all the enemies on the screen which can be played co-op with another player, once the level is cleared an exit will open to the next level. There is a time limit to how long you have to destroy the enemies and if you take too long the Doom Bolt will appear, eventually chasing you down and killing you if you do not destroy the enemies beforehand. To help you on your mission there are a good variety of power ups, twelve in total, which include different guns, more powerful bullets, super jumps, time freeze and invincibility for a short amount of time.
The enemies are varied and all have their characteristics, the Bubble Bobble type enemies continuously travel around the screen, while the little blob things jump around making a nuisance of themselves, the ghosts will make you a target if you get too close and the tanks will provide a good challenge to destroy them. Every twenty or so levels there is a boss which include a very large ghost, a Hell Snake and a powerful tank, these make a nice distraction from the main game and are good fun to take on.
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The enemies, depending on the difficulty level may have different characteristics which adds a good twist to the game. The Easy difficulty sees fairly basic enemies that wont fight back, while Hard gives a much greater challenge with the Bubble Bobble type enemy for example having guns and the ghosts splitting into four smaller ghosts when shot. I liked this way of doing the difficulty level, and it makes a change from just getting some extra continues, although you do get these in Nasty š
There are 100 levels in total, and apart from a couple that are repeated with some variations in enemy content, the rest are original. The level designs vary from an all out shooting style to a more thought provoking layout where you will need to play it smart for a strategic attack and sometimes defense. Some levels have open walls, ceilings and floors which allow you to travel to the opposite side which is useful for catching up to or avoiding enemies, but remember the enemy can also do the same!
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The game will take at least two hours to complete on the Easy level, longer for the harder difficulties, fortunately there is a save position every ten levels. If you run out of continues you will be able to start from every tenth level once you have completed them. This is a godsend as some of the later levels are a challenge and you will be thanking the save positions if you are playing on Medium or Hard difficulty.
In addition to the Story mode there is a Battle mode which allows up to 4 players locally to play a choice of three multiplayer modes. Deathmatch is a free for all shooter with the player getting the most kills first winning, Last Man Standing is the player last person alive and finally Score Attack which sees the players grabbing the fruit and diamonds to get the highest score. I could only play with two players and the game modes are are decent addition, I liked the Score Attack mode in particular as in the other two game modes were fairly easy to kill each other because of the size of the single screen levels.
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Nasty has an improved collision detection and controls over its original release (currently v1.5) but there are still some minor issues. Your character may occasionally fall through a one way platform and sometimes your bullets will not hit destroyable blocks and possibly enemies if they are right next to your character. I don’t want to make a big issue of the collision detection as overall these are rare occurrences but they can result in being an annoyance or worse a loss of life but it is worth mentioning it because of this. The new jumping controls are faster and less ‘floaty’ than before, you can perform a short jump by tapping the A button, or a longer jump by keeping the button held down for longer. I prefer this new method and it is much improved.
The game is great fun and has enough to keep you going for many hours thanks to its scalable difficulty level which adds a lot of replayability, the enemies provide a good challenge on the harder difficulties, it is almost a different game because of this and it also allows beginner and advanced players to jump in and play. Nasty costs 400 :MSPoints: and I would say it is worth the money for the story mode alone, play the different difficulties in order and you have a great game which gets a thumbs up from myself.
You read more about it and download the trial or full version on the Marketplace here.
Competition Time!
I have two codes to give away for Nasty. The first is to reply in the comments below and tell me what would be the name of your evil spacecraft if you were to invade another planet. The spacecraft in Nasty is called Dr. Slugs Flying Fortress of Doom so I want a just as evil sounding name! š
The second code giveaway is Twitter based, to enter simply follow me at http://twitter.com/emuholic and retweet the following phrase āRT @emuholic Win a code for the Indie Game ‘Nasty’, follow @emuholic and RT to enter. Winner chosen at random. #nastycode #xbligā.
Rules:
The deadline to submit your entry for both giveaways is Sunday 11th October at 23:59:59 BST. The two winners will be picked at random from all valid entries. Please include your correct email address in the field if entering the comment giveaway as this will be used to contact you if you win, the email address is not shown to the public.
You can enter both giveaways but only one comment and RT per person, multiple entries may be banned from this and future competitions and please remember you must be following me on Twitter for the Twitter giveaway. Anyone may enter but please remember the token may not be redeemable if Indie Games are not available in your country. The winners will be decided at random from all valid entries.
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