jurrie.net

Foreign Legion: Buckets of blood, pt 2

Posted on Thu 07/02/09 in Other

The review covers build 376, which was a beta released to a select few people who were to give feedback. Except for a few tweaks in weapon accuracy, this build hardly differs from the final version.

Objective

As described in my previous post, in Foreign Legion, you play a soldier whose whole platoon has been killed in action. It’s up to you to defend the poor villagers who are hiding in the town hall from the evil rebels attacking the village!

This basically covers the “story”. Enemies are attacking in waves. After defeating a wave, you have limited time (depending on the difficulty level) to prepare for the next wave of enemies. Your handy radar displays the enemies as red dots, so its easy to see how very outnumbered you are ;-)

Like I said, the enemies’ main objective is the town hall. On the top left the screen, the health bar of the town hall can be seen. You can call for a repair kit to repair part of the town hall if damaged, but if its defense is down, the villagers are open for attacks!

Unlike the town hall, you have no visible health bar of your own. It basically drills down to this: get hit too often in a short amount of time, and you die. You see your uniform get splattered with blood and the screen turning red. If you can’t get out of the line of fire quickly when this happens, it’s game over!

On the map there is a tent in which you can radio for help. If the lamp inside the tent is green, help is available. If the lamp is red or the tent is grayed out on your radar, you’re on your own. A few seconds after radioing for help, an ammo crate and town hall repair kit are dropped on the map. Don’t get killed trying to fetch them, though!

Weapons

At your disposal are the following weapons (covered in screen shots one through five):

1. Pistol
2. Machine gun
3. Rocket launcher
4. Air strike
5. Chain gun (hidden weapon, find it for yourself!)

The pistol is great for killing enemies with head shots due to its accuracy. You’d better aim well on Hard and Veteran difficulties, though, since its refocus is very slow on higher difficulties!
The machine gun is most likely your main weapon. It’s an all-rounder, good at shooting long and short bursts and pretty accurate.
The rocket launcher comes with four rockets and is great for shooting into a group of enemies! It’s also effective in shooting a bomber about to enter the town hall, if you’re too far away.
The air strike is mass destruction at its finest, dropping a few bombs next to each other. If there are many enemies approaching together, finish them all off with one shot! Timing is of the essence, though!
The machine gun fires at an incredible rate, but isn’t very accurate. But if you’re surrounded, it may be your only chance of survival!

Enemies

Three types of enemies try to keep you from protecting the villagers:

1. The bomber. Armed with a pistol and a pack of dynamite tied to his chest, he tries to enter the town hall and blow it up. While his defense and offense are low, his damage potential to the town hall is huge.
2. The machine gunner. Of course, he uses a machine gun to attack. This guy is very dangerous to you as his machine gun hurts like hell! When you duck for cover, his attacks switch to the town hall. These guys also position themselves behind fences and on roofs, for even more annoyance :-)
3. The rocketeer. This guy has his own rocket launcher. Get hit in the face with one of these rockets and you’re down for good! His damage potential against the town hall is also enormous, so take them out asap!

Verdict

Of course you cannot take my word for the rating I’m giving, since the programmer of Sakari is a friend of mine. Still, I do mean it when I say this is a great little indie game! At this time, there’s only one map you can play on, but that doesn’t take away from the goal of the game: A game you can play when you have 10 minutes on your hand and want some excitement. I doubt you’ll play this game for hours on end, but when played occasionally, it doesn’t bore at all and stays fun. Also, you can’t go wrong with the €9.95 price tag.

Verdict: Very recommended!

Get the Mac version at GameTree Online or GamersGate for €9.95 / $9.99.

Sakari’s official Foreign Legion website.

Screen shots

Screen shots resized from 1920×1200 to a more bandwidth/page friendly 960×600 format.