The Game that Could be a Sitcom.
Burt Destruction is a platform/adventure game that starts off with an animated cinematic sequence that introduces the plot and characters. Burt (you) is a young human slacker who shares a house with his roommates Bigfoot and Dr. Dodo, who is quite literally a talking dodo. (They give medical degrees to anyone these days!) When Burt gets angry, such as when Bigfoot farts on him, he transforms into a muscular invulnerable roid-raging Incredible Hulk who smashes everything.
This power attracts the attention of the villain, Yeti, who wants to capture him and use him for his own nefarious purposes. Yeti is the leader of Team E.V.I.L., a gang of strange creatures with hilarious voice-overs. He has a ray gun that he wants to use to turn the entire world into hairy monsters. It’s up to Burt to avoid capture and put a stop to Yeti’s plan. One of my favorite parts of Burt Destruction is the cinematic sequences. The wacky voice overs and professionally animated narrative scenes give the game the hallmarks of a cartoon sitcom. It’s what kept me obsessively playing because you can unlock new scenes at different levels.
The game is divided into two different worlds. You start in Neverfun Land Amusement Park and you can move on to Wormenstein Party Island. There’s a Donkey Kongesque map that displays which level you’ve cleared, charts your path, allows you to buy upgrades and lets you watch the scenes again. The gameplay is Temple Run simple but distinguishes itself from the dull runner by being far more innovative. Each level is an endless runner with platforms where you need to use single taps or double taps on the screen to execute timed jumps. Picking up coins fills the rage meter at the top of the screen. Once the meter is fully charged Burt transforms temporarily into Big Burt and Hulk-smashes everything. You can summon allies like your roommates Bigfoot and Dr. Dodo to help you destroy enemies. Power ups include things like Destroyer, which forms a shield around you that lets you destroy enemies and Magnet, which sucks all the coins on the screen toward you.
The game has a varied array of bizarre enemies. Your early enemies are Manimals, a type of humanoid alligator and Fat Faeries, which look like obese grandmothers in pink tutus with fairy wings. Later enemies include Battle Hover Sharks, Robo Sloths and Donkey Manta Rays, all of which are exactly as awesome and as ridiculous as they sound. The levels are challenging but not impossible. While there are no save points and no lives, there are plenty of power ups, allies and upgrades that can forestall death.The characters and background are cartoonish and varied, almost to the point of distraction. There are Irish bars, graveyards, ships and amusement parks, to name just a few of the locations you might encounter. The music is unobtrusive and the grunts, moans and growls uttered by the various characters fit well with the action.
One major problem I had with the game was the in-game store. Now strictly speaking you don’t have to buy the items, power ups or costumes to beat levels but the game does try to encourage it by making gameplay difficult without upgrades. The game costs $1.99, which isn’t a ton of money but you do have to pay for it. There shouldn’t be an in-game store that’s soliciting you to buy super-sexy power ups better than what you can get in-game. Leave that kind of nonsense to Angry Birds. Another minor issue is that the game is a bit of a performance hog. Depending on your phone you might get stutters and occasionally experience weird graphical glitches. My advice is to use a task-killer and shut down all your background apps.
But none of that diminishes the enjoyment of the game. Each level has its own missions; successful completion of the missions unlocks new allies, new power ups and new costumes. It’s almost impossible to achieve every mission in the first go so you find yourself playing it over and over again because you want the Ninja Burt costume. Missions are as simple as “Collect hidden artifact” or as absurd as “Bounce off two Fat Fairies consecutively.” You can vary the difficulty of the gameplay with three modes, one of which has almost no power ups at all. This will please even the most discerning hardcore gamer.
