Action News Heroes is an action game with twin-stick shooter
controls along the same lines as Smash TV, Renegade Ops, and Halo: Spartan
Assault. Unlike those games that
distinguish themselves by being over the top crazy, have gorgeous graphics, or
are freaking Halo, respectively, Action News Heroes is disappointingly run of
the mill. Its most original feature, a
newscast-style presentation where you have to kill and cause destruction to
hold viewers’ attention, just isn’t all that interesting in practice. Action News Heroes is just one of the most
“eh, it’s okay” games we’ve seen in a while.
See our review for more.Game Details
- Publisher: Krewe Studios
- Developer: Krewe Studios
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Twin-stick shooter
- Pros: Co-op rocks; solid shooting gameplay
- Cons: TV rating concept is dumb; unspectacular in most respects
- MSRP: $10
Except you wouldn’t really know any of that from just
playing the game. The story is told
through weird and mostly awful little comic strip panels between missions but
it is pretty much incomprehensible. All
you really need to know is that there are 8 levels to play through because of
“reasons”, so go do it. It is a shame
so much effort was put into the TV news theme the game uses because it is
mostly pointless fluff.
The one way the game actually does use the TV news theme in
the gameplay, however, is also one of the weakest aspects of the overall
experience. As mentioned above, your
attacks on enemy compounds are being broadcast on live television and in order
to keep viewers happy you have to string kills and destruction together. Happy viewers means a full “Ratings” bar on
top of the screen. Unhappy viewers and
a “0” rating, on the other hand, means game over. The problem with this is that the rating system is the most
arbitrary and random thing ever and adds literally nothing to the
experience. The whole point of these
games is to kill stuff and blow stuff up!
You don’t need to provide us extra motivation! And, in fact, the rating system actually hampers the enjoyment of
the game because it can end in a game over if you don’t satisfy your extremely
fickle viewers.
With all that said, however, the actual core twin-stick
shooter gameplay is decent enough. You
move with the left stick, aim with the right stick, and shoot with the right
trigger. You also have a secondary
weapon, grenades, and a screen clearing super attack. The basic movement and shooting is just fine and pretty fun,
though the game doesn’t really do anything particularly special. It is a thoroughly by the numbers twin-stick
experience. Not bad. Not great.
Just okay. It can also be pretty
difficult, too. Enemies swarm in from
offscreen and it can be hard to avoid getting hit (which lowers your ratings
…).
To make the difficulty a little easier to handle, and the game lot more fun overall, local co-op is also available and that is absolutely our recommended way to play. Co-op always makes games more fun and Action News Heroes is no exception.
Overall, Action News Heroes is decent but uninspiring and
the whole action news theme actually holds it back rather than making it more
interesting. Ignoring the nonsensical
story is easy enough, though, and the core gameplay, particularly with a co-op
partner, can be fun for an afternoon.
It isn’t spectacular, but if you want to play co-op Action News Heroes
isn’t a bad way to spend $10 on Xbox One.
Disclosure: A review code was provided by the publisher.
