Final Exam, from developers Mighty Rocket Studio is a ‘2.5D’ side scrolling game, involving plenty of speedy frantic actions borrowing themes from horror films along with teen movies. To cut a long story short, you play one of 4 friends, who find themselves in the middle of a monster takeover. It’s up to you to survive against the horde, with plenty of blood spilt along the way. And it is great fun.
Final Exam is an all out action game. Simplistic controls make it accessible for anyone to pick up and play. All 4 characters have unique attributes, and can be improved in mini-rpg style using unlockable points, the amount of points depend on hitting certain criteria within a level – such as finding all hidden items and weapons. And when the game is completed, you can easily go back to beat your scores using your later unlocks on the earlier levels.
The story is played out through short cartoon cutscenes, before a level starts and at some points during the levels after checkpoints. The game is fully playable with up to 4 friends online. Objectives get increased depending on the amount of players playing, which keeps you from flying through a level if it had the same objectives as when you’re playing on your own. One issue that I do have is that the cutscenes aren’t shown when playing online co-op. So while I had seen a fair amount of the story already, my co-op partner was just going through the motions without really knowing what was going on, despite this he was still enjoying himself.
The enemies vary enough to keep your playthrough from going stale, requiring you to alter your tactics depending on enemy type. They vary from the quick and nimble, to flying monsters and huge beasts which take a massive amount of punishment. There are plenty of different environments to look at, though you do tend to return to most of the levels later in the game. And to break up play, Final Exam will throw curveballs from time to time, such as the delightful Space Invaders tribute, and controlling a large ship with equipped cannons in a subway. Sounds bizarre, but they fit the games feel perfectly, and break up the usual hack away at enemies nicely.
I really enjoyed the art style the game presents. Quirky character models, and enemy designs looked great on screen, and despite the hectic on screen action with multiple enemies, there is no sign of any slow down or graphical glitches - except for times when you are juggling an enemy in the air and you end up half in the environment, but that is completely forgivable.
You’ll find yourself being increasingly challenged as the game goes on; to the point I had to turn the difficulty to ‘Easy Peasy’ to complete the last part of the game solo. You’ll find yourself regularly surrounded by many enemies, trying anything to keep your combo multiplier going to achieve the highest score possible. It is a short game, clocking in at around 4-5 hours on a single playthrough. But I’m happily going to jump back in at some point to find all the unlockable weapons and try to max out my characters stats (which stay with you when you go online), and maybe even try to max out the others too, not to mention play unlocked time trial mode after story completion.
I spent the majority of my time hammering the ‘X’ button while jumping and dodging enemies, but this is a game with a certain charm, that I really didn’t mind doing so. There are amusing moments throughout (scaring a child with a rabbit’s hat a particular favourite of mine), and I happily played along despite not having a particularly gripping story. One of my favourite XBLA games for a long while, and if it wasn’t for its short story it would likely get full marks. But at £6.75 I recommend you give it a go today.
