Review and photos by Orlando Tech News Reporter Giovan Santiago
A new title from an Orlando video game company has the style and humor to potentially push it to success but may need to tweak the difficulty.
Jurassic Sunset Games debuted “Vice Magic City Mayhem” last week downtown, showing off an aesthetic and control system that invokes the old NES days.
“Mayhem” is an 8-bit action-adventure game in which you explore the titular gang-infested Magic City in search of your one true love.
If you need reference, take a scoop of “Grand Theft Auto” and “Legend of Zelda,” then top it off with a sprinkle of raunchy “South Park” humor.
Like Zelda, you explore the city to obtain money, powerups, and discover small side quests that reward your exploration. You fight your way through thugs, strippers, and killer old ladies with your sword, throwing stars, Molotov cocktails and, of course, a pimp cane that shoots bling projectiles.
While short, the game is easy to pick up, play, and follow its flow with no complicated mechanics stacked on top of each other.
The event last week drew local developers and gamers to hype the game, with several local tech professionals on hand to check it out.
The game became the event’s highlight and drew many players’ interest.
“It’s great! Keep making it rad!” local developer Galo Domaica said.
VR experience developer Mitchell Sanchez said he enjoyed the game.
“Vice Magic City Mayhem” shows some promise.
The concept is hilarious, with vulgar adult humor and an enjoyable gameplay loop.
That said, it’s still early in development and could use some refinement in specific areas.
For instance, the controls, while functional, could be improved by implementing diagonal movement. That may go against its NES-style design concept but it could use improvement.
However, perhaps my biggest criticism is the difficulty. Some screens forced me to fight mobs of enemies; one of these mobs awaited me shortly after I began the game.
If you don’t know what you’re doing and take too long to defeat the enemies, the game will mercilessly overwhelm you by spawning more enemies.
Thankfully, the game has a forgiving checkpoint system and didn’t force me to fight the mobs again after I defeated them and died.
With some practice and efficient usage of your sub-weapons, these mobs are simple, but I would have greatly appreciated a higher drop rate of health from the enemies.
In contrast to that, the pimp boss was relatively easy.
You can see the passion from Jurassic Sunset Games, which is a small company led by former EA developer Matthew Schulz, in the game.
On the company website, they say their goal is to deliver a “bite-sized experience to gamers.”
The company plans to launch a Kickstarter soon. For now, however, you can follow them on social media.