Rick Ajax seems li𒊎ke your typical leather-wearing, croaky-voiced baddie basher. But he%26rsquo;s different. Like Neo in the Matrix, he knows he%26rsquo;s not living in the real world but inside the confines of an action comic book. And he wants out. He wants a fight with %26lsquo;The Maker%26rsquo;.

You see, all The Maker %26ndash; aka the artist %26ndash; does with his time is put Rick in difficult situations within the post-apocalyptic world of Toxopolis, repeatedly forcing the disgruntled character to smash endless reams of skulls, and Rick doesn%26rsquo;t appreciate that. Then a mysterious female, Lori Machete, appears claiming to be someone he knows (but has forgotten due to amnesia) and he follows her on another skull-smashing adventure, the full motives of which he%26rsquo;s not entirely sure. That%26rsquo;s the start, at least, of a rather intriguing plot that, all credit due, will alone keep you interested in what is otherwise a fairly bog-standard, co-op based, side-scrolling brawlജer.

Unbound Saga, itself a rehash of the 2009 PSP game, is immediately reminiscent of one other comic book-themed Sega classic; Comix Zone. That%26rsquo;s good thing, by the way. The game%26rsquo;s levels are laid out like the pages of a💞 comic book, with Rick and Lori leaping from one frame to another smashing faces with comic-style %26ldquo;TꦯHWACKS%26rdquo; appearing in big letters with every landed blow.

Everything plays on this comic theme and it%26rsquo;s done really well. As you fight from the grimy, sordid urban settings of early levels to secret lairs, snow caves and various other environments later, the world is detailed with a distinctive comic art style. The enemies are typically comic-like %26ndash; cheesy villains, aliens or just homeless bums who pick a fight for any reason they can invent, ignorant to the fact they%26rsquo;re about to get a plank of wood, metal canister, or whatever environmental weapons you find wrapped a🐟round their jaw.

The whole time Rick and Lori cracꦫk one-liners, some of them pretty amusing with a tinge of adult humor. You even see the hand of %26lsquo;The Maker%26rsquo; as he quickly sketches new enemies into the environment for you to smash into small paper shards. But it%26rsquo;s unfortunately more style over substance. At its core, Unbound Saga is just a no-frills brawler, with a shallow fighting system, seemingly little strategy, very little modern-day flair and many of the design flaws gaming faced in the early %26lsquo;90s.

A character upgrading system that lets you purchase new moves and combos with tokens found in levels attempts to add depth to the fighting, but slow uninterruptible animations make for a slugging response from the fighters. We fou▨nd the most basic combos work best. Control can be switched between the two fighters (unless you%26rsquo;re playing in two-player) and Lori%26rsquo;s more flamboyant fighting style can be more fun than Rick%26rsquo;s rather boring, by-the-book punch and kick combos, but she%26rsquo;s so weak it can be tedious.

It still suffers from that age-old challenge of judging depth %26ndash; throwing weapons are near useless because you%26rsquo;re almost always an inch too high or too low to hit the target. Ever heard of auto-aim, developers? A little help here, jeez. And in this day and age, not allowing a second player to drop in or out of the game ♌on the fly is criminal. You have to quit back to the main menu, losing all progress in the level you%26rsquo;re playing, to get another player involved online or offline. And there%26rsquo;s no checkpoint syste♚m either %26ndash; %26lsquo;Game Over%26rsquo; means starting from the start of the level.

Unbound Saga is a decent enough brawler. You get to pick up and throw homeless people against a wall, which is always fu𒁃n, and the story itself is good enough to have you button-mash your way to its finale. But its basic, sluggish gameplay is stuck in the %26lsquo;90s. In this age we expect mor🐲e.

Dec 10, 2010