Developed by Milky Tea Studios
Published by Wales Interactive Ltd.
Released for Xbox One (5/6/2016)
Also on Linux/Mac/PC/PS4/Switch
Coffin Dodgers was developed by UK-based Milky Tea Studios and was released for the Xbox One in May 2016. Coffin Dodgers features a bunch of senior citizens racing on their mobility scooters. The retirement village residents are in a competition hosted by Death and the winner gets to keep their soul. It's definitely a quirky concept with some potential, so let's delve in and see how it plays...
The story in Coffin Dodgers involves 7 residents of a retirement village, racing it out against the Grim Reaper and each other and the winner gets to keep their soul. The single-player mode involves 13 races which are separated into 4 themes. The themes are the village, town, farm and graveyard, with the final race against the Grim Reaper taking place on a track that mixes all 4 themes together. The themes themselves aren't particularly imaginative and none of them are very memorable, though they do at least function okay as far as tracks go. There are a few cool parts, like one of the town tracks that has the street blown out and you'll drive down onto the subway tracks, but these moments are few and far between. While most kart racers will have you race for the standard 3 laps, this game has you run 4 laps, which was likely a result of the tracks feeling too short. The characters look decent, sporting a cartoon look in sync with the rest of the game, but like the tracks none of them are particularly memorable except for the Grim Reaper. While Coffin Dodgers features an interesting story, the graphics and track designs lean more toward mediocrity than being good.
Coffin Dodgers is a budget kart racer, this will become evident quickly when you see the simple nature of the graphics. The characters and environments and made up of blocky polygons that look like something that could've been on the original Xbox. While the graphics are simple, the game has a cartoon-like style to it and the bright colors help complete the look. The characters themselves look decent enough, but the whole presentation comes down a bit in the audio department. The music feels like it could've come straight out of a Tim Burton movie and, while not bad and it does fit the theme of the game well, it felt like there was a lack of variety to the soundtrack as a whole. There's not much going on in the sound fx department, with just the sound of mobile scooters, a few odd collision sounds, weapon noises and ambient sounds of crickets chirping. The characters really could've used some dialogue to help add some personality, because the races tend to feel a bit quiet and uneventful.
No kart racer would be complete without weapon pickups on the track and of course Coffin Dodgers follows this trend. There's your standard boost powerup, an EMP that shocks and slows down anybody near you when activated, oil you can throw behind you to slip up opponents, a shield that blocks incoming projectiles, rockets that home in on targets and an uzi. Some of the powerups are more effective than others, but overall the pickups roster is decent but uninspired. Every character also has a default melee attack they can use at any point, allowing you to swing when close to an opponent Road Rash style. It'll take several hits, but you can eventually drop them if you land enough blows. You can also hold the attack button and charge it up, unleashing a super blow that will knock an enemy off their scooter in a single hit if landed. There's some mildly amusing ragdoll physics when the racers fall off their scooters
Between races, you can access an upgrade screen, which allows you to upgrade various aspects of your scooter. It's mostly the type of stuff you'd expect, like better handling, speed and acceleration but there's also upgrades for your melee attack, pickups and paint options. Each category can be upgraded 3 times and can be purchased using credits earned from racing. The first upgrade for the pickups allows you to carry 2 pickups, the second will let you swap between pickups and the third will lock the pickups, allowing you to keep them when hit where you'd normally lose them. The upgrade system is nice, but when the game is as easy as Coffin Dodgers these upgrades are far from necessary.
In addition to the story mode, the main menu offers a few additional modes. There's quick race where you can select a single track to race on, time trial and an open world option. The open world has 2 modes, explore which allows you to drive around the tracks at your leisure (not sure why you'd want to) and crazy granddad mode which tasks you to retrieve and deliver items within a given time. The open world modes were a nice gesture from the developers, but outside of getting the single achievement affiliated with crazy granddad mode I doubt anybody is going to spend much time in these modes. Coffin Dodgers offers up local split-screen multiplayer for 2-4 players. There are only 2 modes: explore and race. Playing with friends always helps the enjoyment factor on these types of games, but it's a bit of a bummer there's no online multiplayer support.
Now we get to the part of the review where I get to really delve into what I didn't like and Coffin Dodgers gives you a lot to talk about in the department. The gameplay is simple to a fault, even for a kart racer. You can simply hold down the accelerator the entire race since your mobility scooter turns sharp enough that you never have to let it go. This makes for a very boring racing game and it really could have done with a drift system at the very least. The weapons pickups are unbalanced since the EMT that shocks everybody in proximity is easily the best pickup while the uzi borders on being completely worthless (and seems to pop-up more frequently than other powerups). After starting a race in single player mode, you can't restart the race, so if you mess up the game forces you to finish that particular race or exit out to the menu. It's not a huge deal, but a big oversight from the developers and gives you a good idea how much testing/tuning didn't go into this game. Despite the game having 4 different themes for the tracks, the levels overall feel too similar and as a result none of them really stand out. The sound design could've helped add some excitement, but it's about as generic as it could be. At the main menu, it's easy to accidentally select new campaign instead of continue campaign and the game doesn't ask for confirmation, making it easy to erase your progress if you're not careful.
Coffin Dodgers is a budget kart racer that has a cool concept but is lacking in execution. The cons outweigh the pros and there's not much reason to play this game when there are better alternatives available in the same genre. Those looking for some easy achievements may get something out of this one, but even then I'd still recommend waiting for a sale due to how quick you'll be done with it.
Final Verdict: Coffin Dodgers is a budget kart racer with an interesting, quirky concept of old folks racing against the Grim Reaper to retain their souls, but the game is lacking in execution with uninspired track design and a lack of any challenge.
Related Links:
Buy Coffin Dodgers - Microsoft Store
Milky Tea Studios - Official Site
Wales Interactive Ltd. - Official Site
Coffin Dodgers - Metacritic
Coffin Dodgers - GameFAQs
Coffin Dodgers - True Achievements
No comments:
Post a Comment