Parents tell the children to finish their vegetables, but aliens are telling the vegetables to finish us!
The Walking Vegetables is an upbeat and cartoony 80's themed rogue-lite, but with a twist. This time, its mutant produce wreaking havoc across an assumedly LA cityscape. It will take the finest example of nostalgic 80's policework to perforate the pesky produce and get to the bottom of this goofy pot plot. Before blasting across the three veggie-logged precincts, you first have time to explore the overburdened police station. It's an accurate homage to the 80's, Robocop not included. It's in the station you can talk to the police chief, choose your perks, or join a friend. I haven't tried multiplayer, it's local only, not that single player is lacking carnage.
Out of the station and into the first stage. The vegetables appear Crying onions, brutal broccoli, pesky peas, etc.. I can't think of more puns right now, but you get the idea. Every enemy seems to have their own attacks, animations, and voices. It looks like a lot of love went into the enemy design in this game, sure they're fodder, but fodder is essential for a rogue-lite shooter. Npc design and theme really make The Walking Vegetables shine in the crowded genre. Speaking of crowded...
Buildings and streets are littered with breakable, loot-able objects. Shoot or melee trashcans, crates, furniture. Here is where RNG can make or break your run. If you didn't find any weapons or health, there's always the 'Shop and Shizzle' located on every stage. It's in the shop you can spend hard earned coins or crystal fragments to unlock and buy weapons or maybe just top up ammo and health before the inevitable boss-fight.
Once the mandatory areas have been cleared, a little green pest will appear and drop a special key in exchange for a crapload of bullets. The boss key will let you face the big baddie and progress to the next area vie DeLorean, nice. Of the five different bosses I saw, each looked fantastic and greeted me with a Borderlands style splash page reveal. Every boss may be different to fight, but they all soak up damage like a sponge under the sea. I found the Rocket Launcher essential to beating them all, especially the final one.
Beating the game and finishing the game are two different things. After my first successful run I didn't have half the perks unlocked. Each special ability requires a certain task or challenge to unlock, so entire runs could revolve around perk unlocking, that is, if you gotta catch em' all. It's not like us gamers need 30 hours of gameplay out of a rogue-lite nowadays, there's far too much to play.
So of the piles of Steam games I have, The Walking Vegetables stands out with theme, novelty, and polish. I rarely finish rogue-lites, so I think that says a lot. Now if you don't mind, all these vegetables have made me hungry...for a cheeseburger, stay frosty, Comrades!
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