The world needs saving… again.
But this time, it needs protection from an alien invasion right in the middle of a zombie outbreak, in a fantasy land somewhere in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with World War II also involved somehow!
And there’s just one hero who can save us all. Unfortunately, he has something better to do, so it’s all up to you now!
Become one tough action hero, choose your favorite weapon and get ready for a thrill ride bursting with action – Race through all the levels. Kill everything and anything.
* 5 worlds you have definitely seen before in other games!
* Story mode, challenges, free run mode and over 30 awards to unlock!
* Great graphics and a pumping soundtrack.
* Tongue-in-cheek story and humor.

We’ve already talked about this game before and we even provided you with the announcement trailer for it so be sure to check that out and come back to the review.

Glad to see you value your life and are back with us now. Gaming cliches seem to be the thing that will finally end civilization as we know it:

“An alien invasion right in the middle of a zombie outbreak in a fantasy kingdom, somewhere in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with World War II also involved somehow”.

That’s how the bad, bad boss man wants to kill all the gamers in the world and it’s why we must stop him at all cost!

The main menu has several game modes available for you which are “detailed” below:

Story Mode (with Story): This tale is told as it it was established in the prophecy oh so many years ago – by non-animated scenes where several lines of dialogue are exchanged between those involved in the game’s story. Watch them interact in five different environments and collect all of the gaming cliches placed here and there and there and here and everywhere!

Free Run (without Story): Here is where all the challenges come into play. Once you’ve completed the game what is left to do? You can challenge your skills with the Challenges that challenge you to challenge-ly challenge specific situations placed before you. Challenge. When trying to complete them you should always select the gold requirement as it does stack and you’ll get recognized for the other two as well. Saves you time in the end!

Hall of Fame: This space right here is sorta like the trophies we’ve gotten used to from PS3 releases. There’s even one extra special one for getting all the others, just like a platinum!

You’re running non-stop and can’t stop at all (hence why I just said you’re running non-stop) and you’ve got only two commands to use: pressing any direction on the D-Pad or the L button makes you jump. The longer you hold it the longer you jump. On the other hand, Square, Triangle, Circle, X or R buttons make you shoot (yes, any one of them). Two buttons makes this sound like a very simple game and while that is somewhat true there is more to the game than running and jumping and shooting. Well, not much really… but that is great news!

To bring some stategy to the table (to go along with the ham and the salad), you’ve got several pickups at your disposal:

Weapon power ups (being hit by and enemy or hitting an obstacle will reset things back to your main single firing pistol):

Machine Gun = Better than your regular gun but that’s about all that can be said.
Rocket Launcher = Too slow to be of any real use. Does pack a punch and can kill a group of enemies with one shot but that’s a rare scenario.
Shotgun = Avoid at all cost! Too slow to shoot, to small a burst.
Laser = Shoot one laser that can kill all enemies in it’s path, even those that are behind obstacles!
Flamethrower = NEVER LET GO OF THIS WEAPON! Constant shooting over a long and wide area that can obliterate any enemy on it’s path. Do look out for friendly units as once you let go of any of the “shoot” buttons it still takes a second for the fire to go away.
BFG = Rare weapon that destroy everything on screen. Not as great as it sounds as it takes a while before you can shoot again.

Other non-weapon pickups are as follows:

Health pick ups Your Hit Points are represented by big red hearts on the upper right corner of the screen so getting this will give you back one of those if you’ve lost it for some reason.

Score pickups: The higher your multiplier, the higher the number of points awarded for it so you better keep that chain going.

Green and Red Arrow pickups: First one increases your overall speed and the second one slows you down. Sometimes they’re placed in spots where you NEED them to make a jump and sometimes they’re there just to throw you off and make you wonder if they will make you not be fast enough/be running way fast as to make the next perfectly timed jump.

Jet Pack pick up: Hold any jump button to fly away into the velvet sky. Works only for a limited time so don’t think you can hover all you want. If you’re hit this will be instantly canceled.

Once the tutorial is over you’re given specific goals for each level that must be met or else you won’t be able to ever get to the finish line! First objective? Kill 30 enemies. Another objective could be to get X number of jump kills, to complete a level without killing enemies, killing ONLY marked enemies or just as simple as reaching the goal at the end of the never ending road.

If you’re Epic enough as to Kill enemies one after the other (what you youngsters call “in a row”) without being hit you’ll start up a tab and marvel at the sight of a combo chain. You can even jump on enemies to get a jump kill to go along with your chain and after every 5th enemy you kill like this you’ll get back one of your hearts (should you need it) which is a nice bonus. The bigger the chain the higher your score multiplier which makes it easier to reach specific level goals or to get a high score in the free run mode.

Each environment features obstacles, enemies, falling pieces of ground and friendly characters you MUST NOT DAMAGE or else you loose your score multiplier and your kill chain. Not all obstacles are 100% bad for you as you can walk on top of some if you time your jump right and you actually HAVE to do so during some parts of a level as it is what the developer wanted from you. Will you humor them? And just to be clear… as much fun as it would seem, DO NOT SHOOT THE COW!

Checkpoints are available on longer levels which saves your chain, score multiplier and weapon in case you die and since you die a LOT in this game it’s great that once you restart at said checkpoint all is well as you’ll be here and I’ll be there, by your side. Checkpoints are something to be grateful of when going for the awards (un-trophies!) that the game keeps track of as making a mistake or dying gives you an instantaneous second chance.

One Epic Game is a fun and inexpensive experience you will greatly enjoy on your console or your portable of choice (unless that choice is the Wii, the 360 or a member of the DS family) for a small investment that is easy, midget horse and simple to justify. Better to play this on the go as you can just put the PSP into sleep mode and carry on wherever, whenever for a minute or two… or maybe more? Minutes are hard to keep track of!

[review pros=”Non-stop action… literally!
Enough fun for your buck” cons=”What, no dancing game mechanics in all this cliches?” score=91]

Published and Developed by Grip Games

Cost – $3.99

Disclaimer

– Game was completed before writing this review.
– Total amount of time played: 6 hours.
– This review is based on a retail copy of the PSP version of One Epic Game provided by Grip Games.

Want to get this game? Then you can:

Buy One Epic game Itself!

Buy a $20 PSN Card!

Buy a $50 PSN Card!