Game Type

Developer: Mommy’s Best Games | Publisher: Mommy’s Best Games | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Action / Indie / Side Scrolling Shooter | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

PC gamers, specifically those who favor Steam for their libraries, are used to a relatively straightforward online shopping experience. Unfortunately, the same cannot always be said about consoles, specifically the Xbox 360. At one point Microsoft decided that more advertising was exactly what the Xbox 360 dashboard was lacking and in the process relegated all the Xbox Live Indie Game titles to a section titled “Game Type.” To make matters worse this section was tucked away behind a stock photo of a girl in a green hoodie. This inspired Mommy’s Best Games to quickly create Game Type, starring the girl in the green hoodie in a battle against sentient advertisements.

As Hoodie Girl, players must first navigate the confusing maze of menus before taking on the evil MediaBall’s advertisements. The MediaBall is of course a sly dig at the Xbox 360 and the maze of menus is a parody of its advertisement plastered dashboard. Once players have scrolled through the pages of advertisements featuring football, cats, cars and doughnuts it is on to a side scrolling shooter where players get to shoot barely animated footballers, cats, cars and doughnuts. Game Type is definitely more of a spoof than a game, but that doesn’t mean it is not enjoyable.

Hoodie Girl, who floats around in that same awkward pose seen in the stock photo, is able to perform two attacks. Her default attack fires weak projectiles forward and above as well as below her, while her “kickbeam” is a much more powerful, but forward firing only attack. Destroying enemies’ results in floating cash, but players must stop firing in order to draw the cash towards them. The game only features a single level, but each time that it is completed the game loops again, but a little faster. This is where the “Time Pulse” special move comes in handy as it slows down time and turns enemy bullets into score drops when shot. This power-up is in limited supply though, so the trick is figuring out when is the best time to use it in order to rake in the really high scores.

After only a few loops the game becomes very fast, so chaining together Time Pulses are essential for surviving. Your enemies come at you from all corners of the screen and usually spew hordes of bullets in your direction as well. Thankfully, warnings appear to indicate where off-screen enemies will be appearing from and, in true bullet hell fashion, only Hoodie Girl’s heart-shaped hit box is vulnerable. To make things a little easier the hitbox and enemy shots appear to be a little clearer than they were in the original game, but death still comes very quickly in Game Type.

It is definitely a game for score chasers as everything it has to offer can be seen in the first few minutes after which everything loops. After every three loops you get to battle a giant cat and there is a 2-player local co-op mode where Purple Hoodie Girl joins the fight, but that’s about it. The game also features all the Steam extras, like achievements, trading cards, Steam Cloud support and leaderboards.

Game Type was originally released in 2011 and even back then the visuals were clearly rushed. With its sparse background and lack of animations the game doesn’t look very polished, but the visuals are not without charm either. Some of the adverts featured on the MediaBall dashboard is actually very funny and a few can even be clicked for a short animation or screen. The audio is similarly sparse and as far as sound effects go the shouts of “Parkour” every time you activate the Kickbeam attack soon becomes tiresome. According to the developers using an Xbox 360 controller is the best way to play the game and we are inclined to agree.

While it is a clever and surprisingly playable dig at Microsoft there isn’t really enough depth here to keep players occupied for very long. It is fun while it lasts and the price is reasonable enough, but we can only recommend Game Type to players who love chasing high scores and don’t mind repetition. We suggest grabbing the Mommy’s Best Action Pack to see what this game is all about and get three other titles as part of the deal.