POSITIVES
- Lovely art-style
- Depth added by economy management
- Great city crunching action
NEGATIVES
- A slightly clunky U.I
- Occasional strange A.I unit behavior
BOTTOM LINE
If you want to control your own Kaiju and send it out to conquer the world, this is the game for you!
Our Rating
8.5
Even though I know that it by no means created the concept, the film Pacific Rim made me very interested in the whole Kaiju thing in a way that little had before it. A Kaiju is a monster, usually a large one, and it is usually engaged in some sort of city-wide evacuation level action that sees the army of the country involved finally with a foe worthy of its arsenal. Kaiju-A-GoGo is a PC game that casts the player, not as the saviour, but as the mad scientist using the creature to demand the respect that he so deserves!
The story is that you have built the first human-controlled Kaiju, in the guise of Ginormasaurus. While your peers race to catch-up, you have a five-year window of opportunity to use your Kaiju to take over the world! Destroy enough of each city, crush morale and decimate the area’s military and slowly each zone will bow to your control. Taking over every region means that you have won. Sadly, for any Mad Scientist, there is a bit more to it than that.
Kaiju-A-GoGo gives the player a great assortment of tactical options and abilities. There is a base-building element, constructing various structures on your island that will generate the materials you need to improve your Kaiju. The Kaiju itself can be trained and upgraded in a whole manner of ways, passive abilities can be added that improve targeting or defensive abilities, along with active abilities that must be triggered by the player. The more active abilities include a bevy of attack options, such as the fireball ability that leaves buildings around the blast zone to burn to a crisp or the more sci-fi laser attack that can shoot down helicopters. However you want to go about things, there should be a range of abilities that will let you play the Kaiju in your own manner.
The cities themselves are quaint, most featuring some well-known landmarks with a nice blue line around them to draw the eye. Taking out these buildings will usually give you a nice hefty chunk of resources, be it money, power, organic matter or whatever is on offer. Do it quick though as, similar to any other building, the local military don’t take kindly to enormous monsters destroying their cities. Cities are rated in ranks, starting at rank 1, the least difficult, to rank 5, the hardest. The resistance you can expect will increase the longer you spend in one place as well, the response ratcheting up from infantry trying to take you down with bullets to bombers and laser tanks. Yup, you need to be a bit tactical and keep your avenues of retreat open, just in case. Even traveling from your island to the target can be treacherous, military forces waylaying you if they catch you and chipping away at your creature’s health. So these need to be avoided too.
While playing, I did come across a few issues that were less than ideal. There were a few issues with the path finding of the enemy, the occasional ship ended up floating across land and tanks would zig-zag left and right as they travelled along a straight road at times. There are also things about the UI that are a little less intuitive than they could be. In the base building area, it looks like you can build a structure by clicking its icon, but this just gives you information. You actually need to click the resource bar below it, or the word “Build” underneath, which doesn’t look like a button.
UI issues aside, the game is lovely to look at; I didn’t grow wary of its art-style once in the many hours I spent with it. The sound is also suitably fitting, the footfalls of Ginormasaurus thumping the ground, the ordnance flying in at it and its own weapons fizzing and crunching with suitable meatiness. There are also more chapters coming soon which should certainly help the game stay fresh.
If you have a part of you that just wants to destroy cities, revels in a little economy management and is in love with the giant monster idea, Kaiju-A-GoGo should scratch that itch nicely. It can be repetitive (few games aren’t) but the progression and pleasure involved keeps it interesting and enjoyable. It’s currently 13.99 on Steam which I would say is just about right and well worth taking a chance on.
Author: Andrew Salvo is a serious gamer and writer for alychidesigns.com. Learn alot more on their tech website including everything from gaming to tracing a mobile number to learning about different career choices.
