First look at Wasteland Angel

CB Droege 11 Jul, 2011 at 11:07pm ET Article published in Gaming

Wasteland Angel is a new arcade-style shooter from Meridian4. The player takes on the role of the eponymous hero, riding into the wasteland in her heavily modified vehicle to combat the villains of the wasteland and protect the peaceful towns which still hold out against the terrible post-apocalyptic conditions.

The gameplay takes the form of a combination between a steered third-person shooter and a defense game. The hero circles the peaceful towns, shooting back at the enemy vehicles as they come in waves. Most of the enemies are simply trying to kill Angel, but some of them drive to the town and start kidnapping the residents. The player has to stop them from loading up the helpless citizenry before they are all taken or killed, being careful not to run over the ones who have successfully escaped the vile slaver clutches.

Every four levels is a boss fight. There are no towns, but Angel has to destroy a super-sized enemy vehicle to continue—all the while continuing to fend off the smaller enemies. After the Boss levels, the player is sent to a bonus survival level, in which the camera is moved to the front of Angel’s car, giving the same gameplay from a different perspective. The idea is to survive as long as possible, and there are no towns to protect.

Throughout the game, the enemies drop various bonus tokens, which Angel can collect for bonus points, weapon upgrades, and life. Between waves, she can send her car to a charging station which allows her to regain life depending on how much time the player was able to leave between waves.

The narrative of the game is told through comic book-style scenes and lots of voice acting during the levels themselves. Angel is searching for a friend, whom owned the really cool car before her, and whom she lost track of when the bombs fell. She’s traveling across the country from Washington to New York, by way of Texas, helping whoever she can along the way. On her travels across 24 levels, she encounters three distinct tribes of wasteland villains, each with four different vehicles and in six different visual locations.

Look for Wasteland Angel on Steam later this summer.

Comments

11 Jul 2011 ~ 11:13pm primesuspect It looks cool, however: Post-apocalyptic is the new WW2, mirite?

It is rapidly getting close to the point where the setting is overplayed.
12 Jul 2011 ~ 9:22pm GHoosdum Tank Girl?
13 Jul 2011 ~ 8:31am CB

primesuspect wrote:

It looks cool, however: Post-apocalyptic is the new WW2, mirite?

It is rapidly getting close to the point where the setting is overplayed.

I don't know. Everyone's post-apocalypse can be different. I mean: Yes, we see some pretty derivative and unoriginal apocalypses sometimes, but there will never be a time when there is nothing new that can be done with the apocalypse, not until an actual apocalypse, at least.

WWII, on the other hand, is a real time, and it's the same for everyone. You can't really do anything new with WWII as a setting unless you venture into alternate history, which technically isn't a WWII setting anymore.
13 Jul 2011 ~ 11:24am Koreish

CB wrote:

WWII, on the other hand, is a real time, and it's the same for everyone. You can't really do anything new with WWII as a setting unless you venture into alternate history, which technically isn't a WWII setting anymore.

So Command and Conquer: Red Alert lied to me?
13 Jul 2011 ~ 1:32pm Basil

Koreish wrote:

So Command and Conquer: Red Alert lied to me?

Affirmatiff.
17 Jul 2011 ~ 2:55pm dj waldon Looks like a pretty good game instructor d. Also a good review c
27 Jul 2011 ~ 8:46am dakan45 There are plenty of other games like that, i dont remember their names though, point is, they are the same thing as this like the devs of this made them too in the past.