Wasteland Angel

Developer: Octane Games | Publisher: Meridian 4 |Release Date: 2011 | Genre: Top Down Shooter |Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

After World War III, most of the population is killed, while the survivors are left with a post-apocalyptic wasteland to call home. With roaming bands of wastelanders terrorizing the remaining towns, things look bleak. Angel is one survivor who is not sitting down waiting for the end. Instead, she is making her way across the wasteland in her trusty car, Gypsy, while saving a few towns along the way.

Wasteland Angel is a straightforward arcade shooter, so don’t expect a very intricate plot. The story is narrated by the lead character along with some nice comic book style cut-scenes, but it never amounts to much. Your job is simply to protect the towns from the evil wastelanders. Gypsy, your armored vehicle, is equipped with a machine gun but can also pick up secondary power-ups such as mines, napalm, spike strips, and even nukes to beat back the waves of enemies.

While the “killers” are busy trying to, well..kill you, the slavers will make their way to the town, where they literally suck up the people. Lose all your lives or fail to protect the towns, and it’s game over. Each area is basically an arena with one or two towns, which you have to defend from waves of aggressors. You have a day level, night level, boss battle, and bonus round before it is on to the next town, where you repeat the process. Most of the game is viewed from an overhead perspective, apart from the bonus levels shown in first person. Unfortunately, the bonus levels only highlight how bland the visuals are.

While the gameplay isn’t bad, it suffers from being extremely repetitive. There is very little enemy variety, and the campaign is extremely short. There are no multi-player modes either, so you are left chasing online leaderboards. There are some Steam achievements, but it’s easy enough to get all of them with a single playthrough. The audio isn’t too bad, but the music and effects tend to be drowned out by the warning alarms triggered by slavers abducting villagers.

While we had fun playing Wasteland Angel, the experience was too brief, and the story ended abruptly. If you are looking for an old-school shooter that is all about power-ups, score modifiers, and leaderboards, you might enjoy the game. However, we prefer Zombie Driver, which offers a similar experience and much more.