Game of the Year 420BlazeIt Review
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Release Date: November 15th, 2014
Developer(s): Andy Sum
Publishers: N/A
Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux
Genre: FPS
Players: 1
Rating: 7.8

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Synopsis:
Infiltrate the Illuminati base, fuelled by Doritos and Mountain Dew. Embrace every part of internet meme culture in this satirical first-person shooter.

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Story:
The mission instructions are made clear at the very beginning. xXSWAGNEMITE#YOLO420Xx instructs you to defeat the Illuminati. To do this, you must sneak into their secret underground lizard base and 360 no-scope 420 blaze it for the good of humanity. You are equipped with a standard issue Mountain Dew Ghetto Blasta. You are reminded to drink Mountain Dew and eat Doritos along the way. The future of MLG is counting on you. YOLO.

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Gameplay:
The gameplay is jumpy, saturated and at times glitchy. However, as the game is designed as a parody, it does nothing to take away from the overall experience. You begin by killing off a small number of enemies, a gentle introduction to familiarise yourself with the controls and your weapon (the mighty Mountain Dew Ghetto Blasta). The cluster of Mountain Dews and Dorito bags remind you to drink and eat to maintain low levels of 'thirst4Dew' and 'hungryiness' which if not controlled can be detrimental to health.

The first true challenge comes as opening a seemingly innocent door leads to strobe lighting, slow-mo and a tonne of illuminati soldiers. Text prompts such as 'godnight sweet prince' and 'sample text' flood the screen making competent gameplay essentially impossible. A mixture of gun spraying and surging forward prove necessary in getting past this stage. The game centres around several of these 'rooms' to clear out. Such rooms are joined together by rest corridors where health can be recuperated.

There are two main story-lines to follow, the highlight of which is Shrek's Swamp. Shrek has significantly higher health than the other enemies and has a range advantage through his sniper so proves to be a difficult foe. With its novelty gameplay and hilarious meme culture references, Game of the Year 420BlazeIt really holds its own (especially considering it was made in seven days).

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Graphics:
The graphics are sub-par at best. The lighting is unbalanced and during stages of high motion, there are moments of blur. The text in the opening intro is hard to read and the variety of colours on text prompts can prove hard on the eye. The animation for shooting seems more like a lighting flash than a shot and the soldiers all look identical (excluding uncropped internet meme images for heads). In Shrek's Swamp, liquids don't look like liquids and the ground is blurry. This is the one department in which the game's seven day development time really shows. The range of graphics options make little difference to the actual quality where even at the highest setting, graphical issues cited here are still prevalent. Still, this game is a parody and should be played for comedic purposes, not graphical.

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Controls:
Default controls are easy to adapt to. Providing you've played PC games before, you won't have a problem. I'm sure you could use a console controller if you're not familiar with keyboard/mouse gaming.

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Rating:
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Graphics: 6/10
Controls: 8/10
Overall: 7.8