Local multiplayer seems to be on the rise this year, with 2016 already seeing an abundance of games releasing for those still feeling a level of appreciation for some same screen multiplayer madness. With the release calendar showing no signs of slowing down any time soon, it seems there may well be plenty more arriving in the coming months. The latest introduction to the genre comes from Brazilian developer Unnamed Fiasco Team with their game of the same name, Unnamed Fiasco.
Unnamed Fiasco is a competitive local multiplayer title that started life as a prototype for a game jam back in 2014. The game sees players take control of one of five crazy characters through five different game modes. The unique characters included consist of a baby lucha-libre fighter, a raging bull, a charming bull fighter, a hipster robot and finally a crazy old lady, complete with moustache!
Whilst Unnamed Fiasco has been developed for the local multiplayer experience, those looking for a solo jaunt haven’t been forgotten. From the main menu players can choose to take part in the Challenges. This is a completely solo offering and gives players challenges based around three different solo game modes – Target Practice, Treasure Hunt and Keep the Flag.
Target Practice sees the player start the match with no weapon to hand and several floating targets of different colours to take down. The task here is to pick up one of the various weapon pickups on screen and blast away the colours that are different to the colour of your new weapon. For example, should you pick up the Red gun, you would first shoot down all the Blue and Green targets, then you would pick up either a Blue or Green pickup and blast away the remaining Red targets. If you think this sounds like a simple objective, then you have been fooled. Whilst shooting these different targets is by no means a hard task, the time in which you are expected to complete the said task to achieve any of the Bronze, Silver or Gold medals is simply insane. It wasn’t until my attempts had started reaching well into double figures, that I was able to graze off just enough time to scrape up a bronze medal for my efforts.
Keep the Flag has also seen my several attempts turn into nothing more than another Bronze medal, despite memorising the screen better than the route to my own kitchen. Keep the Flag requires the player to do simply that, however with a screen that continuously has grenades raining down upon every area of the playing field, this becomes much more than simply holding onto a flag. The real challenge here is to simply stay alive long enough to reach the flag, because if grenades weren’t enough for you, then the flag respawn every couple of seconds surely will be. However, it’s this game mode that also threw in my first disappointment with the game. You see, whilst the task at hand is more than enough to keep any player focused it didn’t take long for me to realise that there was actually no need at all to even grab the flag, as after the first respawn the timer continues to climb regardless of whether you currently have the flag or not. Whilst running for your life from a screen of raining grenades is indeed enjoyable, it clearly isn’t the way this game mode was intended.
Treasure Hunt is the final solo option, and this game mode sees the player tasked with collecting the various random drops that appear around the screen to gain points. Whilst it has no issues of any sort it must be said that this mode offers nothing unique or interesting to the mix. With my task being nothing more than running and jumping to collect various treasure items, my time with Treasure Hunt felt more like a tedious chore over an enjoyable experience. With a medal only obtained by learning perfectly where each piece will be and how to get to it quickest, the gameplay simply offers nothing that hasn’t been done better in other games.
Okay so the single player isn’t great, but with any local multiplayer title it’s the multiplayer that offers the real meat and gravy to the experience. Unnamed Fiasco is no different.
As mentioned before, the multiplayer is home to five different game modes players can take part in – Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Treasure Hunt, Police Chase and Dog Tag. Deathmatch is as you would expect. Players take part in an all-out kill frenzy to be the one with the most kills come the end of the match, something which is governed by a time limit that counts down or the usual score limit is hit. Capture the Flag is much the same as the previously mentioned Keep the Flag single player mode but brought into a multiplayer experience, taking away the raining grenades for the most part.
Treasure Hunt is again very similar with the only difference from the single player offering being the inclusion of multiple human players to fight for the treasure. This obviously adds some much needed competition to the mode. Police chase is my favourite game mode and this sees players start off in different areas of the screen with one person starting with a gun as the police officer. This player must then chase down all other players within an unspecified time limit until the round ends, with surviving players earning a point. Each new round sees a new player assigned to the role of police officer until either the score limit is reached or the time has run down.
Finally, we have Dog Tag, offered with two variations. It sees players aim to take each other out with eliminated players dropping a dog tag which gives a point to the player who picks it up. Players can pick up their own tag to stop anyone else from gaining the point however the No Recover variant removes this option.
Whilst setting up each game mode offers the usual set of options, the settings to take notice off are the Minute Madness and Clone options. Minute Madness adds some spice to the match types – this setting will enable randomly throughout the match and with it brings in a random modifier such as the previously mentioned raining grenades, high/low gravity and inverted controls amongst others. It certainly offers a nice change to the gameplay. Clones is another interesting gameplay element with each clone appearing and copying the exact routes and actions up to the player’s death. However with maps being so small and spacey this option falls victim to poor level design with clones doing nothing more than occupying empty parts of the map.
Overall then and Unnamed Fiasco offers nothing new to the genre, with many of the gameplay aspects having seen better days elsewhere. The exclusion of both online multiplayer and enough substantial content to keep players coming back for more, means that unfortunately Unnamed Fiasco is nothing more than a party warmer.
