Back in the early 2010’s, the PlayStation Store had three tiers of indie games. Minis, which came at any price between £0.50 and £5.00; small and medium sized indie games, which usually came at a price of £7.99; and large indie titles such as Trine, or DeathSpank, which came at the top price mark of £11.99. And commonly, each and every price tag reflected the quality, and replayability of the title. But all this changed once current generation of consoles has surfaced, and turned console digital markets into a free-for-all.
Now, we no longer have ‘minis’ and every single game published on the PlayStation Store, is considered to be a digital game. And with the status of the so called ‘digital game’, comes the benefit of custom price attribution, and now gamers can find high quality games as cheap as £1, and complete garbage as expensive as £29.99.
Variety in price and quality, has made it impossible to judge a game by its face value, and now, in the year of our lord, 2016, selecting a title from the PlayStation Store, is like picking a flower from a minefield. One can find a title appealing to him/her, in every possible way. But sometimes, one realizes, just after picking the said title, that he/she have just stepped on a landmine, and is about to be blown into the outer space. And this is exactly how every person that decides to purchase the MilitAnt will feel after purchasing it.
Let’s make it clear, MilitAnt is an incredibly cheap indie game by today’s standards, however, it’s low appealing price point, is probably the only good thing about it, meaning that it is a complete antithesis of Assault Suit Leynos, of which review you can read here.
MilitAnt, is a 2.5D side-scroller, shoot ’em up, but unlike its direct competitor, Assault Suit Leynos, which has also been released last week, it is an incredibly clunky, and disappointing member of the Contra-like club. And while it tries to spice things up with numerous weapons, such as rocket launchers, and mini guns, they all feel weak and lack the audiovisual kick, and therefore feel more like nerf guns, rather than deadly weapons. Also the animations which they all poses further drag them down, as all seem to be ripped out straight from an original GameBoy grade title.
Disappointing, and tiresome combat will bore most to tears, and many will surely resort to simply sprinting through each and every stage, as most won’t bother spending their precious time on fighting legions of exactly the same enemies. Especially when they are not missing out on anything relevant, as only the sub-boss and main-boss need to be defeated in order to complete the level, and such can be easily destroyed with the basic weapons. However, getting to the bosses may not be as easy as it sounds, as MilitAnt is harder to control than a drunk cat, and is less predictable than a chimp with a fully loaded submachine gun.
Unresponsive and unpredictable control schemes can sometimes be overlooked as certain titles do not require precision controls, however, MilitAnt is a side-scroller, and its overall quality depends on its controls, and responsiveness. And in this instance, unfortunately, both are below the average grade. At times the double jump will carry the titular ant all the way to the ceiling, and the dash will carry it halfway across the screen, whereas a second later, the very same combination will barely lift it off the ground, and dash will only move the Militant Ant, just few centimetres forwards. And moving forwards in MilitAnt is vital, as staring too long at the horrendous scenery featured in MilitAnt, may lead to short-term eye damage.
With all distasteful jokes aside, it has to be stated that MilitAnt is simply unpleasant to look at, the textures are of low quality, and blurred out at the best of times, and it is really disappointing considering the premise of the game, which is A Bug’s Life: Turkey. If only the devs have spent a little more time polishing the game up, to an acceptable standard, we could have had a real gem on our hands, however, not a single aspect of this title is developed to its limits. Everything feels cheap and unfinished, and the core of the tile, which should in the very least be competent, is just like the rest clunky and amateur like. And as appealing as its price point may be, Militant is simply not worth anybody’s time, and let’s hope that PlayStation will never make it a part of the monthly, PlayStation Plus offering.