Let the poncy title games, begin! |
For an old game there's a little bit of charm still left
in this one. Quartet 2, in which we adopt the Gauntlet model of gaming and
having several colour coded players running around the levels but instead we
drop it to a 2D platformer, throw in some guns and weapons, some physical
powerups and so on.
As opposed to a chicken, that would be original at least. |
From the off, in Quartet 2, you get to choose from
Caucasian guy 1, Caucasian guy 2, Caucasian Girl and Complimentary Black Guy,
running by the names of Lee, Joe, Mary and Edgar and their photos looking like
some offcut designs from the original Dragonball series of anime. I'm guessing
this line up was done for the thinking "White Male most popular
demographic so let's have two of those, then throw in some others 'just in
case' someone wants to use them". Though having said that, they all do
have slightly different weapons and slightly different weapons during upgrades.
Lots of enemies, lots of action and fairly smoothe too! |
The premise is simple enough in Quartet 2, start the
level, travel to the end and kill the boss that holds the key, then leave via
the door. On the way you may find various power ups in the guise of jetpacks,
higher jumping, more points, weapon upgrades and such. Also found within the
levels are bouncing orbs that can be shot to cycle through colours, giving rise
to the possibility of gaining weapon upgrades if you collect it with your
characters main colour being selected, or just more points. However, upgrading
your weapon too many times resets it back to the first point, which may or may
not be a boon or hindrance depending upon your character, but gives you an
incentive to hunt for more orbs.
Special weapons for each person, but who really cares? |
However, you also have a limit on health and while the
game plays, your health drops steadily. Getting hit, shot, or just collided
with by the enemies will plummet your health to dangerously low levels and
dropping to zero is the end game situation for your character unless you want
to pump in another credit and keep playing.
Joe will win the day, with his stupid quiff |
Given the time and technology available, Quartet 2 is
proudly holding the "Cartoony" appearance because it really can't be
doing anything else with such limited capacity. However you can expect the
rooms and levels to be flooded with enemies from time to time with no slow-down
happening in the game. Monsters, as cartoony as one can make them, spawn periodically
and endlessly from key spawn doorways and trapdoors to hamper our characters
progress while the boss will take multiple hits before going down, increasing
in speed and threat until that point.
Mary in red, dancing with me... Cheek to cheek... |
The sounds within Quartet 2 are quite chirpy and cheerful
for the music, tripping along to an almost easy-going set of musical scores
while the blippy noises and beepy squeakies give the game a certain charm that
improves to the overall experience in that this is rather innocent little game
before the times of blood, guts, gore and games taking that "dark"
and "edgy" approach, it's cute and cheerful and for all intents and
purposes could be a game show of the future.
It looks complicated, most of it can be ignored and just gun it for the key. |
Overall, Quartet isn't a bad game but it's not a great
game. There's too many times that you'll find your character dropping all of
their items after colliding with an enemy (including the door key) and having
to backtrack to get them and then dropping it again when you arrive back to the
same enemy now that it has respawned and sits awaiting to fuck up your day the
same way it already has done so. Give it a try however if you see it around,
the responsive controls may let you feel for the days when playable games were
all that a game really needed to be without relying on gimmicks and sexualisation.
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