E.T. once taught us that not all aliens are fiendish monsters bent on ruination or bursting out of thoracic cavities. Eradication, experimentation and exploitation don’t have to be the focus of their energies; sometimes aliens come for exploration and to munch on peanut butter candies.
It’s safe to assume the visitors in Abduction Action! never watched E.T. In fact, it’s safe to assume if they ever encountered E.T., they’d suck him up in their tractor beam and watch gleefully as they cast his shriveled brown body plummeting back to the surface.
The aliens in Abduction Action! are a maniacal lot; nothing brings a smile to their little green faces quite like mucking around with humans: crushing them with cows, destroying their kegs of beer and abducting their women.
And you know what? Ruining hillbillies’ keggers and dropping cows onto panicking Earthlings is a lot more fun than mending flesh wounds with an elongated glowing finger.
You play the role of a nameless inadequate dope of an alien whose aspirations of becoming a top UFO pilot were shattered by your ineptitude. Fortunately your sister is shacking up with one of the alien commanders and once he puts a space-rock on her finger, he feels compelled to give you a chance to prove you aren’t a total waste of space-matter
The story is told through monologues from your brother-in-law who manages to direct your actions in between humorous rants pertaining to your sub-par intelligence. He makes no attempt to disguise his abject opinion of you and frequently goes on verbose rants insulting your intelligence.
You pilot the UFO with the left stick and pull objects on the ground up to the ship by holding the A button. Each stage has list of activities, which are detailed by your not-so-kind brother-in-law. Missions typically involve abducting a few citizens, disposing of some armed adversaries and destroying a boss. As you might imagine, the humans are somewhat hostile towards their intergalactic visitors. They retaliate against abductions with gunfire and eventually bosses appear. A pickup truck full of angry hicks, an enormous stampeding college mascot and a police helicopter stand in the way of fulfilling your mission and pleasing your brother-in-law.
Your alien craft is a fairly sizable target and you have to be pretty close to the ground to use your tractor beam, so it can be pretty difficult to abduct things without taking damage. Enemies tend to fire their weapons in clusters, which means you often wind up getting hit a bunch of times at once. Thankfully, you have a limited amount of stun bombs and a temporary boost that can help you escape perilous jeopardy.
The main strength of Abduction Action! is its humor, which is prevalent in all aspects of the game. The absolute lack of respect shown by your comically mustachioed brother-in-law’s dialogue is quite hilarious and reinforces the image of your character’s worthless slacker nature. Comments about how he hopes you don’t die so he won’t have to attend your boring funeral and how proud of you he is because you did something most children can do blindfolded reveal a lot of personality.
The game is also very self-aware of the alien stereotype it is reinforcing, and it acknowledges that your tasks such as abducting cows and destroying the kegs of beer are completely pointless other than to upset the humans.
Pulling the humans up to the ship also yields a bunch of chuckle-worthy quips of dialogue such as “ow, my liver.” Another mopey-toned civilian whines “I wet myself” and a policeman boldly proclaims the Judge Dredd classic, “I am the law!”
The first few levels are pretty easy but the final showdown at the military base is extremely difficult. Navigating through the hail of bullets requires using the boost and the stun bombs with scrupulous precision.
Abduction Action! is begging for some type of multiplayer mode, online or local, which would really extend the life of the game. Competing to see who can abduct the most civilians or who can squish the most farmers with cows within a set amount of time would be a perfect addition to this game.
Even without any multiplayer component, Abduction Action! is worth checking out. For only $1, it is one of the more-humorous indie games and an amusing addition to anyone’s indie library.
Abduction Action! was provided for review by Fun Infused Games. The review is based on the full version of the game, which is available for 80 MS points ($1).
By at .
Pingback: Tweets that mention Abduction Action! review for Xbox Live Indie Games -- Topsy.com
Pingback: Win a free copy of Abduction Action! for Xbox 360