What if a new additive introduced to foods turned everyone into overweight, overindulging blobs that were hell-bent on caloric intake? Actually, what if the latest twin stick shooter took an overhead view of Left 4 Dead and reskinned foodstuff survivors fighting fat people? Either way, you’d end up with Obesity Epidemic, Super Boise’s co-op XBLIG.
This is a real pick-up-and-go twin stick shooter, extremely streamlined for better or worse. With the storyline revealed before you get into any action, there’s no reason not to drop right into the action. This is facilitated by the lack of control explanations, options, or difficulty choices.
You really only get to choose either Enter Epicness or play Survival Epicness. The latter option tasks you with fighting until you’re defeated on a bland board devoid of any features bar the yellow-and-black caution striped floor paint. At the main screen you’re able to check the High Scores (which are local, not posted online) or check a gallery view of Super Boise’s other contributions.
[nggtags gallery=ObesityEpidemic]
Once you’ve troubled yourself with the taxing chore of deciding which of the two modes you’d like to play, you’re again stripped of choices. Your controller port will decide whether you’ll play as Frank the hotdog, Paco Taco, Tastee the doughnut, or Jackie Eggroll. Not knowing this at the time, I invited my friend D. Balderas to take up the second controller and play with me. Thankfully he was not insulted as he was assigned to Paco Taco.
There’s an assortment of borderline offensive elements in Obesity Epidemic, but the title and rating should establish that from the beginning. It doesn’t take long to see the zombie survival title beneath the fast food wrapper of this XBLIG. Starting Enter Epicness, you’ll have to rescue your friends, as their speech bubbles voice “Save Me!” and plead for you to hit X to do so. You’ll need to keep your allies up, as you’ll hit an invisible wall if you stray too far from them. The halting/rubber banding effect that you’ll encounter if you try to leave your fellow foodstuffs behind will often get you killed, so it’s best just to revive them. Even if you don’t have any buddies to play with you, the AI in this game is surprisingly good.
Dj TurtleGodfather’s “Last Song of the Night” blares mercilessly throughout the entire game, and you may find yourself muting the game as you frantically spin around in order to illuminate the otherwise pitch black board with your flashlight’s arc. Various weapons are available as power ups, and the shotgun, rocket launcher, and flame thrower are all finite; your default weapon, however, has infinite ammo. The cake bomb is an explosive lure that can be thrown with Y. This pipe bomb pickup chirps a few times as it draws all nearby enemies to it before blowing up, littering the field with “infected” innards of burgers, fries, muffins, and chicken legs.
There are a few special undead…er, I mean obese enemies. Saucers, Starving-Stoners, and Hungry Hungry Sumos bear striking resemblances to zombies in a certain shooter, but you can be the judge of that. You’ll want to avoid their specialized attacks as you struggle towards the turrets at mid-level or so. Jumping into the stationary guns, you’ll have to survive for 30+ seconds as hordes of fatties try to prevent you from raising the gate that bars further progress. Once the gate is lifted, it’s a bit more fighting towards the safe house…darn it, I mean Checkout. If you don’t make it, you’ll be presented with an Everyone Has Been Eaten screen that displays individual kill counts and allows you to save and view your scores on a local scoreboard.
All Left 4 Dead comparisons aside, Obesity Epidemic is a fun game hindered by low replay value. After beating the game there’s really not much to call you back to the controller. Maybe your 80 :MSPoints: would be stretched a bit if the stat tracking system were more in-depth or the leaderboard was globally supported. Kiid Retro’s “Donuts” mockup of Kanye West’s “Robocop” is fun to listen to for a few repeats at the title screen, but even that wears on you before long.
Obesity Epidemic is yet another twin stick shooter trying to compete against countless others in the XBLIG family. Ironically enough, what sets this game apart is its similarity to an established retail franchise. All in all, the dish is a tasty appetizer at a price that doesn’t require belt tightening. Just don’t expect to order it again.
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