Bytten

Ice Ice Revolution is a very ambitious game for an indie to attempt to program. A tactical shooter, the game reminded me a little bit of my all time favourite Commodore 64 game Airbourne Ranger.

Using very awkward keys (that cannot be redefined) and the mouse, players must guide a soldier through a mission. The mouse cursor is used as an aiming point for weapons and as the navigation point and the keyboard is used to advance, retreat or strafe in a method similar to that used in most modern FPS games.

This game is 2D however and has an oblique isometric display. Left Shift can be held to run and the Spacebar will reload your weapon.

The graphics are terrible. The characters are very tiny and most of the graphics have a very limited palette. The very tiny pickups can only just be seen against a garish and totally unrealistic background. All in all the graphics look like something from a 1980's game that didn't quite make it onto a budget cassette. Ugliness aside, playing this game actually made my eyes hurt!

The sound effects are not bad but are distorted through excessive volume. The music can be turned off, which is fortunate because the truly awful awful distorted noise that accompanies the game sounded like a sound card bug to me, but it was in fact 'music'. However after saying all of that this game is not a bad game, in fact it has a lot of depth and playability.

Ice Ice Revolution consists of a series of military style missions. There are different character classes to play with different abilities and these are chosen for you. The ninja, for example, can remain still for a few seconds and become invisible to the enemies. The ninja attacks with a sword and other character classes each have pre-defined weaponry. The sniper has a very nice implementation of a sniper rifle.

Most of the puzzles or mission objectives are the 'locate object x to overcome obstacle y' variety. Computer controlled guards wander around and can be ambushed because they see only forwards. Line of sight applies to players too, which is vital for a tactical game like this. Weapons are realistically deadly and you also get infinite retries, both of those points are plusses.

The pathing on the enemies is not perfect and even the player can get stuck inside the (very dark) scenery. It is possible to squeeze through closed doors. These points are another reflection on the poor presentation values. The game is not very user friendly at all and it's all to easy to find yourself in a mission with no idea of where to go.

Some people will take one look, laugh, and not look back but if you get past the aesthetics you'll find a good game hiding inside. I prefer playing Ice Ice Revolution to yet another puzzle game but Airbourne Ranger it ain't.

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