‘Doodle Army’ Review
Intro
Doodle Army is a stickman side-scroller with great physics and some innovative concepts (despite it’s cursed ‘doodle’ name) yet its repetitive gameplay makes this an unattractive purchase in the long run.
Gameplay 4/10
Doodle Army involves you, the stickman, running continually sidewards armed with a vast array of weapons. You then have to apprehend ton after ton of enemies, also armed to the teeth and make it to 500 – 1000 meters across to unlock the next level. Now, 500 meters may not seem like a lot in the real world, but boy is a long trek in Doodle Army. Unfortunately, this makes the game incredibly monotonous and boring. The enemies pose almost no challenge at the beginning and it is incredibly easy to mow down the lot of them with your heavy machine gun.
You have limitations of ammo equipped with each gun but thankfully you can pick up any gun that an enemy drops, meaning you will never fully run out. Additionally, your health is also limited, but why is this not a problem? Because every stickman you kill drops a bit of health. You almost never run low on it, and it wasn’t until the 4th level (after 1500 long meters) that I died.
So there I was, so confoundedly bored of Doodle Army, when I discovered the Boss stages. Each level (up to the fifth) has a separate boss stage and each are completely different. For example, on the first level in the training camp, the boss stage consists of you driving a quad bike along the original level running over helpless stick men and battling with neighboring quad bikes. Then after a certain amount of time a large army truck will appear and you have to perform jumps to get high enough above the tank to shoot at it’s passengers. Furthermore, on the second level you are in a helicopter and you can shoot from above. You have full control over the helicopter. You can also massacre stickmen up with your helicopter blades by leaning forward and you must rescue innocent civilians to gain extra points. Whats more, after some time, more planes and helicopters appear, resulting in epic flight battles and the like. In each boss stage you have 10 minutes to get as many points as possible by completing said goals and killing stickmen and heavier machines.
That flamethrower is an absolute killer!
The boss levels are so much fun that they could easily warrant a separate game and the only reason I bear to live through the monotonous standard gameplay is to get to the next level, to play the boss stage.
Graphics 6/10
The graphics are mediocre. Nothing special but still distances itself from the ‘built in Microsoft Paint’ look like in other ‘doodle’ games. The game ran extremely smoothly on my 3G with no frame rate issues, even in intense battles.
Controls 7/10
There are a few configurations of controls you can choose from. Even though none of then are perfect they get the job done without hassle.
Sound 4/10
The sound is cheesy and lighthearted, with the abnormally high stickman voices and quirky song this isn’t one to be taken seriously. Overall the sound is good in its own style and if you like that sort of thing. However, I found myself muting the high-pitched screams after a while.
Menus 6/10
The menus adopt the overused paper theme which I dislike, but the options are responsive and work well. Navigation is also good.
The boss levels are epic!
Longevity 2/10
Each level has a different theme, enemies and weapons, but the repetitive gameplay remains the same. As you progress you collect different ‘doodles’ which change you characters appearance.
The boss levels are the only reason I come back to Doodle Army, but even then I feel like I had to force myself to load it. My disappointment when I reached level 5 which did not include any additional extras like a boos stage.
Even though, on paper, Doodle Army has a lot of replayability such as collecting gold stars on each level, competing in online leader-boards and achieving all of the OpenFeint achievements the gameplay is extremely dull and there was nothing that compelled me to try and accomplish these things.
Cost 6/10
$0.99/£0.59 is the right price for Doodle Army, but still I feel a few enhancements need to be made before I can recommend it.
Conclusion 35/70 – 2.5/5
Even though Doodle Army does include some great concepts and exhilarating times, they are extremely short lived, and after a while the levels become repulsively boring. Definitely try out the free version first.
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