Grab Your Jetpack and Get With It!
Grab your weapon and reload, there's no need to be polite.
The entire premise is that the entire world has had their legs taken away by the pirate Blockbeard. Why? Because he has no legs of his own and has been captured by the rest of humanity. He of course escapes and the entire populace is baffled by the loss of their legs. It is your job with the help of a professor to take a rocket pack that screws onto your bottom.
This game is not polite either in the way it allows you to control your character. You use both analog sticks, left to move, and right to aim and fire. The longer you hold the right stick the further your shot will go when you let go of the stick, and until you let go of the stick you can still aim in any direction as long as you do not return the stick to center. Movement is in a rocket boost feeling way. You can move up and left and right fine, but to go down you must fall, and the physics here feel weird, but work well if you think about it. If you were really boosting around a screen you would fall faster than you can boost up and this requires getting used to vs games like Galaga where you have full fast. responsive, control over your character.
Your goal for the most part is to destroy your enemy. They have the exact same weapon as you and move the exact same way. Even the bosses move like this as well, but they are larger and have different weapons. For example one of the first bosses you face has boxes they throw at you that have a homing feature and will not leave you alone until they are destroyed.
Some other goals you will have are finding other characters hidden in blocks, several times, and than destroying them at the end is another goal. Besides those there is a football level which requires you to take a football from one side of the screen and throw it between goal posts on the other side. This is my most hated level due to increasing enemy counts as you score more point's combined with not being able to fire rockets with football in hand (you will drop the football if you try). besides having special bosses every 10 levels, the final 10 levels include a maze that is a one time thing like running the clock out until the sun comes up in the 'scary' stages earlier on.
Your main weapon is a straight rocket that can vary in speed and length depending on how long you hold the right control stick. Other weapons are upgrades that last a specific amount of time. You find these weapons after destroying enemies, or more commonly the background, which re spawns after a certain amount of time passes. These special effects are on hold until you press the A button, and if you have one in effect anything you pick up later will be on hold and can be used with the A button canceling out the currently used effect. The upgrades come in green, blue, yellow, or red.
Red is a debilitating effect and can not be canceled out with a new power up, it must run its course like a cold. The power down effects include farting rockets when you shoot, confusion, and more.
Blue is a.... buff effect. None of these give you extra firepower but effect your character in a support way to crazy way. For example you can get a ducky buff which will give you a circling duck shield that will take damage for you if a rocket hit's them before you, it is better than nothing. One will give you full health, and another will disable the music and make you 'invisible' in the sense your rockets and you pass through the stage and only hit enemy characters. There are many more such as making you small and faster moving.
Yellow is a non helpful goofy effect. One effect will turn your rockets into pumpkins, sports balls, and other things that do no additional damage, and another will make your rockets randomly turn and go behind you.
Green is the real buff and helpful effects. They range from making your rockets huge to destroy the background, to homing missiles. Other effect's include a triple shot for every single rocket fired, fast rapid long shots that do not require you to keep firing, you can just keep the stick pressed in the direction you wish to shoot, and the less helpful fast long shot that requires you to keep firing.
There are 80 levels and a boss at every 10th level. The game gets very difficult as you approach level 70, and than the difficult drops off rapidly until you meet the final boss on level 80.
Over all the game is something I believe everyone should play. There are many things besides the main story to do such as multiplayer on-line, and co-op, as well as a endurance mode. The game is definitely worth the cost at full price and a must get when on sale. The game is well deserving of a 4/5 when considering the price paid for the game with a high replay value with friends.
