Developer: Backbone Entertainment
Publisher: 345 Games
Genre: Dual Stick Shooter
ESRB Rating: Mature
Release Date: Available Now
Review by: Michael Rabalais

If I had one wish, it would be for unlimited time; time to play games, read books, watch shows and movies and generally consume media. Unfortunately, I don’t have a ton of time at my disposal, and as a result I’m not especially familiar with a ton of TV. I have certainly heard of Comedy Central show Ugly Americans, but I have not had an opportunity to watch it. I have however, had time to play its game adaptation. It’s only too often that licensed games feel rushed or of poor quality. Does Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon deviate from that standard?

The game follows four characters from Ugly Americans: Mark Lilly, Callie Maggotbone, Leonard Powers, and Frank Grimes, and they each offer different stats and special abilities. These characters go through an emergency scenario in New York City’s Department of Integration (D.O.I.), an organization to help demons, zombies and other various monsters adapt to life in New York City. As the city falls into disarray, players investigate D.O.I. case files, and try to halt what appears to be an incoming apocalypse.

While each case file may present different enemies and power-ups, dual stick shooting remains the centerpiece of each level. Players can collect ammo and power-ups within a level. These power-ups alter movement speed, attack power, how a gun shoots, or the players defense. Finally, up to four players can play at any given time, via local multiplayer or Xbox Live.

You may have noticed while reading the above paragraphs, that my description of Ugly Americans: Apocalysegeddon doesn’t sound especially scintillating. It wasn’t what I intended, but it helps to convey a very important point. As much as I want to make Ugly Americans sound as appetizing as a crisp autumn apple, it isn’t. I found myself constantly frustrated by the game’s camera angle, which is set up like a 4-player side scrolling beat-em-up. I found it incredibly difficult to parse where an enemy was in reference to my character, which made shooting them and avoiding their shots near impossible in some cases.

But even a camera angle well suited to dual stick shooting couldn’t save Ugly Americans. Variation among different playable characters or enemies is minimal, and by the end of the first level, I was already bored. The shooting was tedious, and no amount of switching ammunition or characters changed that. Worse still was the constant babbling my character and his opponents were spewing. Judging by how often I heard phrases repeated, each enemy had roughly 5 lines of very un-funny things to say. Playable characters were slightly better, with maybe 15 lines of equally unfunny dialog. Call me a snob, but simply repeating inappropriate words ad nauseum isn’t clever or endearing or anything more than profoundly annoying.

The highest praise I can lay on Ugly Americans: Apocalysegeddon is that it ran at a consistently high frame rate. The rest of the game is below mediocre at its very best, with absolutely boring gameplay, and a rotten sense of humor. Don’t play it.

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