Soldiers of Fortune

The Good
everything

The Bad
can't see anything except Bitmap Brothers being hibernating or something.

The Bottom Line
Bitmap brothers definitely are, or were, I don't know, one of the first teams that deposited real passion, art, and the concept of recycling making homage to (as Tarantino does in movies), on videogames. They were definitely mature indie game constructors, and they presented that on fluidity marrying graphics in an organic playable sense. The Chaos Engine is another game that demonstrates that. An inspirational classic game with direct passport to the hall of fame of Artistic games.

The Good
This is a Bitmaps Brothers game, so the look and feel is awesome.

The game mechanics is a mix between Gauntlet and Ikari Warriors, yet I like it more than I ever liked those other two and for a good reason. It's better.

There are always enough baddies to keep you on the edge of your seat, but not enough to make you feel overwhelmed. Some look crazy but they're all cool and each world sports its own set of them, so you only get the giant frogs on the first world, the black blobs on the second one, the walking hands on the next one and so on.

While there are no secret levels, there are several ways of entering, exiting and going through some levels. That makes the game very replayable. When you take one route, the other is blocked and the only way to know what's over there is to play again. Each route is filled with goodies, so whatever you choose, you're not going to regret it.

Having six characters to mix and match also makes the game very replayable. And your sidekick, while not always useful (read below), at least doesn't get in the way. If he's left behind, he'll be teleported to the current screen, and you can always pass through him.

The Bad
The music is good, but there's only one background track for sixteen levels. Why they couldn't hire some guy to add more music? Same thing with the sound effects. Why so few of them?

Eight-way scrolling games have never been a favorite genre of mine, but the few I've played at least let the player shoot and move at the same time. On this game, the player can do one thing or another, but not both. It's no deal breaker, but it's not the best way to play neither.

The eight-way scrolling also makes your CPU-controlled sidekick very unreliable. If there's no angle for him to shoot, he just stand there until the monster reach a place he can shoot at or he moves accidentally to a better position when he follows you. This limitation makes some levels harder than they already are.

If you're one of the few who are still playing on a console, there's one more thing. Instead of getting a password after every level, you get one every other level. That means that dying on even-numbered levels forces you to replay not one but two levels. That's not fun.

The Bottom Line
Like Contra, The Chaos Engine is hard but not unbeatable, and like Metal Slug, it offers plenty of reasons to play it again and again and again.

The Good
The Chaos engine is a Roaming shooter that is both challenging and fun to play. Viewed from a top down perspective you must blast your way through several levels to put a stop to the Chaos Engine which has populated the lands with vicious monsters.

Playing as one of 6 characters you shoot, collect keys, items and money to get to the portal of each level. In between levels you would get the chance to spend the money you have collected in a shop to purchase power-ups. These were essential as the game got tougher & tougher.

In parts this game could be very testing, but that isn't to say that is wasn't beatable. In multiplayer though you really must work together otherwise you've no chance.

TCE was a very likeable game that was easy enough to pick up and play at any time and is recommended to those who like a meaty shooter with a bit of challenge.

The Bad
There were elements of the game that irritated. Like not being able to see where exactly the path was or getting trapped behind several enemies when trying to get that precious Life power-up.

The Bottom Line
Got some time to kill? Then the Chaos Engine is what you need.