Genetic Disaster review

‘Splosions, lizards, turtles and fish: what more could I ask for?

After a gruelling time with my family over Christmas and the new year, with several parties and a single wedding (who has a wedding on Boxing Day?), it was time for me to play more video games, because I don’t do enough of that already. The game that sprung to mind was one I looked at just before Christmas, and when my internet was down, I found myself playing a lot of it – either with my sister or a friend, or sometimes on my own. Genetic Disaster is its name, and while it looks like a knock-off Rayman, it’s anything but. Yes, the characters with hands but no arms look like rehashes of Rayman characters, but the gameplay and how you play each character soon put Rayman out of mind. Though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t play Fiesta Run on my phone afterwards.

You take the role of one of four characters, which loosely fit into classes, or at the very least have different gameplay options open to them. You have the turtle, who can make a protective shield for him and his team mates; the fish, who can stun enemies so he can run away; the lizard, who can teleport like all reptilians can; and the furry, Tasmanian devil-type-thing, which fires an amazing shotgun-style weapon and decimates whatever is unfortunate enough to be stood in front of you at the time. Once you pick a characters, you’re charged with running through levels and shooting at everything that moves, looks like it might move – and in some cases, which doesn’t move. The result are explosions, lots of bullets flying everywhere, and me spending 90% of my time dead, flying around as a ghost.

The graphics are colourful and vibrant, with everything standing out to the point where it all melds together in some mix of orange, red, and yellow, with your character barely identifiable in the chaos. Strangely, while that may be taken as a negative, I take it as a positive. It’s something I really like about this game, just dodging bullets and fire, all the while shooting goo or boomerangs.

The game also features bosses, one being a rabbit in a barrel who fired chains around, as well as the obligatory explosions. The only problem was that he (or she) wasn’t too hard to beat. In fact, I was dead before we got there and couldn’t be revived, so my friend basically completed it single-handed, next to no dodging required and minimal damage taken. To be honest, this boss was easier than most of the rooms we had slogged through to get there.

My only other qualms with the game are the bugs that are present. While there doesn’t seem to be too many that I’ve encountered, the ones I have are mighty annoying. When playing with a friend, loading up the game can be tedious; all you see is a black screen with a cursor, and it can take far too long to load up. More than once, I managed to watch a YouTube video or make a sandwich before we loaded in. The same was true for when we passed into the next level, and sometimes we closed the game because we thought it had crashed. There were other bugs as well, such as the same sound droning on in the background, not being able to revive teammates, and bullets/blades appearing in different places for different people. The last one is really irritating, and seeing as it’s a bullet hell game, something I would have hoped would be fixed pretty quickly.

Overall, Genetic Disaster is a fun game, something even my sister could play, a person who routinely asks me how to jump and move at the same time on Spyro. I love the graphics, the running around dodging everything you see, and collecting coins to buy whatever new weapon you find in one of the ‘stores’. While the bugs are a low point, and the bosses could be a bit more… boss-y, it’s a solid game, and if you have some cash lying around you couldn’t go wrong to buy it.