Arson and Plunder: Unleashed (PC) Review

As is usually the case, the Orcs and Elves of this tale aren't exactly friends. Nevertheless, they will have to join forces to fight a new menace: Man! This newcomer is ruining the forest these races live in, so one representative from each one is sent to fight... well, the Man - a female elf mage by the name of something-something Arson, and a green brute known as whatever-Plunder. A brief cut-scene later, and both of these folk find themselves merged into one body, something that is definitely inconvenient, but very helpful when it comes to their mission.

Despite the somewhat unique premise, in essence this remains nothing more than your run-of-the-mill side-scrolling brawler, where you move to the right, and beat enemies to a pulp. The fact that you control two characters at the same time, simply means that you are able to instantly switch between them, and take advantage of their strengths - Plunder's brute force, and Arson's versatile magic skills.

Sadly, the game itself just isn't fun. It's the same 'old repetitive recipe of the genre, and one that lacks the challenge found in some of the classics. There are many levels, especially in the beginning, where you can simply close your eyes, mash buttons while controlling Plunder, and just obliterate everything on screen without much trouble. Things become more difficult as time goes by, but it's easy to just spam Arson's recharging spells to deal with larger enemy groups whenever Plunder seems to having a hard time.

Generally, this isn't a well-crafted game. The controls are unresponsive and clunky, the audio-visuals are amateurish, and, the most important part, the gameplay, is repetitive beyond belief, with little to no variety in terms of mechanics. There's a co-op mode, as well as the typical Survival mode, for those who care about the "story" of the campaign, and the "humour" found within it, but the gameplay remains equally boring, so why bother?