Ultimate HardBass Defense is a third person shooter in where you play as one of four girls and try to survive the increasingly difficult waves of enemies. The main gimmick featured in this title is the DJ blasting out hardbass at all times, and you don’t actually have to worry about defending him, as even zombies know it is a great crime to interrupt good music. You start off with only a pistol and can begin the wave whenever you choose. In the meantime, you can buy some ammo or learn the game’s mechanics. Most importantly is how to dance, because while it may not help you survive in any way, it makes our comrade the DJ feel appreciated, and angers your friends as you pull off some sweet moves instead of helping.
There is four player coop, though you can choose to play it by yourself. The title in its current stage is quite easy and you will have little trouble surviving once you gather enough cash for good weaponry. Your trusty starting pistol never becomes obsolete however, it has amazing accuracy and kills a common zombie with a single headshot. One thing you will have to get used to is the fact that you can not run & gun, you need to aim before being allowed to shoot. That is an interesting design decision for a horde shooter. At first, it may feel a bit odd having these semi tank controls, though ultimately it does lend it a unique gameplay style that ends up being pretty fun.
In its current state, there are only a couple of guns ranging from a weapon that shoots vibrators to an RPG. Each of them falls into one of three tiers and it is vital to know that buying a new weapon of the same tier will replace your prior gun without warning. That can be devastating early on, as money is limited and you accidentally end up replacing a gun you just bought a ton of ammo for. Once you complete a couple of waves however, you will have more money than you know what to do with. Well at least if playing solo, you can find yourself having a near infinite supply of ammo for all your weapons, as well as a ton of health kits and grenades. It makes it far easier to deal with being swarmed by the increasingly numerous amount of foes.
As the title goes on, more and more new enemies will be introduced. All except one of those consists of an attack strategy involving simply slowly walking towards you in order to get into melee range. The one exception is an arachnid-like creature that can pounce at you from a great distance. They are likely designed this way to fit in better with the stop and shoot gameplay, but the special enemies just end up feeling like bullet sponges instead of a new threat. We could definitely do with some ranged attacks or some kind of erratically moving foe. Not to spoil anything, but they were definitely on the right track with the final monster you will face. And yes, there is actually an end to this, it will not go on until you die like many others of the genre. Whether that is a good thing or not depends on the player, though it certainly wouldn’t hurt to add an infinite play mode.
Health kits are your only way to regain health and these are applied instantly. If you have enough money, you can stock up on a boatload of them and mash the Q key to heal whenever needed. It is pretty unbalanced as of now, it could do with some form of healing animation to keep it from being abused. If you do end up out of health, you will find yourself in a downed state. This will be quite an issue if you are playing alone, as you can not actually die, you’ll just find yourself in that position until you quit the game as zombies endlessly smack you. Funnily enough, you can still jump when downed. None of these are huge problems, though it is clear the title is very early in development as of the time of this writing.
The biggest issue this title currently has is the fact that there are no enemy spawn points outside. They all spawn inside the building and holding the choke-point at the door with explosives is beyond easy. One can easily cheese their way through the game in this manner as it defeats the danger of being swarmed and none of the enemies having a way to counteract this. Once again, some form of charge or projectile attacks to keep you moving would do wonders. A later enemy does have a slight jog, though it is still too slow to be much more of a danger than a common zombie.
Slaying an enemy is made quite entertaining due to the crazy physics that see them flying dozens of feet through the air. That is due to them defecating themselves with great force and flying around the arena like a bottle rocket. It never gets old and keeps the gameplay feeling fun. You can access the store whenever you want to get some more ammo, guns, or whatever else you may need. Time will not stop for you however, so you got to be fast if you find yourself in need of stuff in the middle of a fight. This brings me to another issue. The Dead Space like way the inventory is handled is cool, but if you open it up while facing the camera you will not be able to make out a thing. Considering you are usually on the run, it can be tricky to position yourself just right. A fun fact is that while it doesn’t freeze time, it does freeze your animation, so you will be floating in mid-air if opened when jumping.
All four girls are different visually, but play exactly the same and even feature the same dance moves. There is no reason to choose one above of another, so pick the one you like best. Eventually, you will face the first and only boss in the game. It is an interesting change of pace and will easily challenge you more than any other foe. It does have a problem in that it not only has an absurd amount of hit-points, no doubt designed that way for coop, but if you are using explosives, it is very unclear if you are even doing any damage as well. I can confirm that you can kill it with explosives, though as ‘gamey’ as it is, a life bar for it may be in order.
Once you beat it a single time, there isn’t much reason to come back to it, aside for the fun of it and listening to the plenty of good hardbass tracks on offer. With how chaotic the Steam store is now that it allows any game to be sold on there, it is more difficult than ever to tell which unknown title may be worth your time. Ultimate Hardbass Defense is currently unbalanced, rough around the edges, and with a name like that, easy to dismiss. It is good damn fun though, especially with some mates. At the time of this article, it has just been released and lacks any patches, yet proves to have a solid foundation. These are early days for it and I certainly feel I got my money’s worth out of it at its base price of $2 or your regional equivalent. If you enjoy pick up and play third person shooters, this is may be an early access title worth keeping an eye on.
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