Release Date: 02/02/2012
Played On: Win
Available On: Win
Time Played: 11h 50m
Progress: Really smashed it.
Developer: RichMakeGame
Publisher: RichMakeGame
For the longest time "procedurally generated levels" was gaming blasphemy and an immediate turn off when used in a game's description. It felt like as soon as Minecraft hit it big, everyone and their mother was including procedurally generated elements in their game. The promise was millions of combinations and infinite replay-ability, which ultimately wound up meaning an endless gauntlet of bad content to slog through.
Funnily enough, leaving game design up to a computer algorithm isn't always the smartest thing to do when you're trying to get living, breathing, humans to have fun. The amount of horrible messes I've played because of procedural generation are countless, so I'm glad to see it's time has passed.
I mean, level design is an art that takes meticulous planning and play testing to get right. I always think of the original Doom levels that featured genius layouts that always drove you forward to your goals. At the same time most of these maps were sprawling and if you weren't paying attention you'd quickly get lost and have to find your way back to a recognisable landmark. It's a lesson in brilliant linear level design that I hope many people have taken lessons from, but the existence of 100% linear corridor shooters like Call Of Duty and Battlefield beg to differ.
Anyway, the point is that procedural generation usually guarantees a level of bad game design, which has been traded for variety and quantity. It's the classic abandonment of quality to try and make numbers bigger; who can forget Borderlands advertising the "millions" of weapons available in the game. Can you also forget how boring it is to pick up and endless supply of guns that have a slightly different stat modifier than the last…
I say all of this as a preamble to my opinion that Pineapple Smash Crew is a hell of a lot of fun, despite featuring procedurally generated levels. Thankfully this is a game that uses designed and curated tile sets that are then procedurally configured, instead of 100% computer algorithms.
Although, Pineapple Smash Crew is not without its problems, but I really can't talk about this game without a big old smile on my face. It's a colourful, jaunty, twin-stick shooter that finds itself in the company of classics like Cannon Fodder and General Chaos.
Mainly because you are tasked with controlling four space marines who move together through alien infested space ships in search of intel on the big alien mothership that serves as boss. As with its inspirational predecessors, your squad of marines move and fire as if they are a single entity, but controlling multiple units provides extra gameplay options to exploit.
For instance, you always have one marine at the front of the pack, so they're probably going to get hit more than their buddies as you blast your way through each level. Thus, swapping out the formation of your marines becomes an important skill to master, as rotating their positions can be the difference between survival and annihilation in some tight spots.
Additionally, the main conceit of Pineapple Smash Crew comes from the large variety of grenades that you unlock and use throughout the campaign. Thankfully they drop constantly and only on the harder levels will you be left looking for an interesting grenade ("pineapple") to throw at alien enemies. In fact, more often than not, changing the formation of your marines serves as a way to pick the perfect grenade for the situation, as each marine can pick up and carry only one at a time.
There are regular frag grenades, but the real fun comes from every other variety on offer. One throws a rocket that you can aim and fire, another drops an area-of-effect damage zone, there's even one that creates a healing zone to stand in and heal those wounds. There are laser grenades that fire through walls, there are flame thrower turret grenades, there are ones that explode into a ring of bullets… there are loads of grenades.
So eventually it becomes a tactical game of picking up and carrying a range of grenades that suit your playstyle. I quickly found that I had my favourites, as well as some that I avoid like the plague. I like it when one of my marines is carrying a healing grenade for those clutch saves, but I also like the teleport grenade that sends your dudes across the screen and damages everything they hit along the way. Suffice to say, there's a lot of flexibility when it comes to how you approach your grenade loadout and how you'll use each one.
In fact, you never get the opportunity to change your primary guns, as the real focus is on the explosives, so after a while your bullets become a secondary consideration. The game kind of hints at this as bullets are infinite and instead of reloading or keeping track of ammo, all you have to do is ensure that you don't "overheat" the guns by firing non-stop.
What really appeals to me about Pineapple Smash Crew though, is the fantastic presentation that oozes style and character all over the place.
The soundtrack is an epic chip-tune experience filled with tracks that you'll be humming before you know it. The ultimate compliment for any soundtrack (I feel) is that even though it's repetitive and you'll hear it over and over, this one never ceases to be motivating and a whole lot of fun. It's a jaunty/upbeat soundtrack that makes blowing up alien monsters a whole lot of fun.
Marines and enemies are designed with a blocky aesthetic that manages to be simple and immediately understandable, while staying away from the Minecraft clone style that so many have emulated. In fact, the simplicity of the character and enemy design is what I love the most about it, as they're painted in bright colours and are just large enough on screen to be instantly recognisable. Maybe I'm getting older, but there's something to be said about how annoying high-res shooters can be when everything's so detailed and small, so you end up losing track of where things are all the time. Not so in Pineapple Smash Crew - everything's clear, colourful, and easy to understand.
The downside is that it would have been nice to have some more customisation options to really deck out your crew of space marines in some cool duds. As it stands, there are only a few different hats to choose from, none of which are all that exciting so it's best to stay with the defaults.
Each marine changes their outfit colours as they level up, which is a nice feature when sometimes those marines will die. Having a new rookie enter the squad in their green duds standing next to the veterans in their dark reds and blacks, really highlights how far you've all come together. It would be nice to have some manual customisation options, but it's not a deal breaker.
In fact the worst feature of the game is lacklustre gamepad support, which could be a deal breaker for anyone not willing to deal with control problems in their twin-stick shooter. The game is obviously trying to make you play with mouse and keyboard, which I consider a sin for twin-sticks (the clue is in the name). I have nothing against mouse and keyboard, but the good thing about playing on PC is that I have every control method available to me, so I want to play a twin-stick with sticks.
Unfortunately, there's only partial support for gamepads in this one, to the point that some of the controls will have to be figured out along the way if you're avoiding mousey keys. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't adapt after a few runs, so I'd say get past it if you can… just get ready to grab your mouse whenever a menu pops up on screen.
The final saving grace of Pineapple Smash Crew is the one I started talking about at the top of the page: its procedural level design. Thankfully the room layouts are built from strict rules and tile sets that get recognisable after a few runs, but keep each layout relatively different. It's still kind of terrible, and I still feel like the game could have been tighter and more polished if it used pre-built levels that planned enemy abilities and room layouts effectively, but what's there is fine enough. It's just sad that the weakest part of the game is the level design, because it's practically unavoidable with a procedural generator.
Despite the lazy level layouts and lacklustre gamepad support, this is still a fun and bombastic twin-stick shooter that I can see myself going back to every now and then for an exciting run. The soundtrack is wonderfully compelling, and the bright colourful design of characters and environments really carries you through the boring room layouts.
It's a very simple game with few bells and whistles, but it doesn't really need them to keep you interested. Pineapple Smash Crew is getting on in years, which I kind of think accounts for the bad gamepad support, so maybe I forgive it for a lot of its shortcomings. At the end of the day though, I can't deny that what I've played has been a whole lot of fun, and I look forward to firing it up in the future and blasting my way through some more aliens.
Ultimately I think that's what a good twin-stick should be. It's the arcade mentality of short runs that are endlessly enjoyable for fans of the genre. Sometimes a shooter fails to keep its hooks in you, but I feel like Pineapple Smash Crew will always have a place in my twin-stick library.