This game is simple and fun enough to be in an arcade somewhere, stealing quarters from the addicted masses.
The story is simple, and probably quite similar to many other games. Humanity has been destroyed, utterly and completely, by an invading alien force. Zombies, aliens, lizards, mutated spiders, and various other unsavory critters roam the Earth. Cities are non-existant, flattened to the ground in the wake of the destruction. You are the last human being in the entire planet, and you've got a gun. You hear the stomping of alien feet over the horizon. Time to have a little fun before you die, at least.
The gameplay is simple. It is a top-down perspective view. You move your little guy over the (admittedly pretty large) landscape using the arrow keys, while your mouse cursor is where your gun is being aimed; the mouse button fires your weapon. Point and click/shoot. There is a story mode (which isn't so much a story as it is a 'challenge' mode to unlock extra features such as weapons and power ups.), a survival mode where you see how long you can last against ever-increasing hordes of enemies, and a 'rush' mode where a gigantic mob of enemies is just 'there' on screen as soon as you start and you see how long you can last with a bottomless clip. It's all very chaotic, and the bleak idea of a storyline has you inevitably perishing as human kinds last fireworks show of violence and gunfire in every game you play-- but you can go out with a heck of a bang.
This is where the game is a throwback to arcade games. There is no end to the game, to speak of. The game ends when and only when you die (save for the 'story' mode, which is not really the meat of the game). There is no big bad-a** at the end, you just keep going till you drop. However, you gain experience points for the amount of enemies you kill. The motivation to play the game is getting a higher score, living a little longer and killing a few more guys, not beating it as quickly as possible.
To aid your survival, the developers put quite a few weapons at your disposal. But that's not all. The points you earn in the game are 'experience' points-- that's right, you can level up. While you don't level up in the RPG sense of getting more HP or Armor or access to better equipment, you are given access to what is called a 'perk.' A 'perk' is simple; it's an effect that directly affects your little 'last man on Earth.' These effects are varied, potentially powerful, and they stack upon one another. For example, "Angry Reloader" will send out bolts of fire in every direction whenever you hit the halfway mark on your reloading timer. Combine this with Fastshot - a perk that makes your gun fire faster, but empties the clip faster- and "Fast Reloader", which doubles your reload speed, and you are a walking explosion. Top that off with "Hot Tempered" which sporadically sends out waves of those fireballs for no reason at all... You see where it's going, right?
Not all perks are there to aid in your survival, however. "Grim Deal," for example, will kill you. It WILL, however, grant you an 18% bonus of your overall points added on top of what you have already earned; if you have 1 hp, no ammo in your clip, and are completely surrounded, this isn't such a bad deal. "Death Clock" will also kill you in thirty seconds; however, you are completely invulnerable in that time period, and can just go nuts. "Fatal Lottery" will give you a free 10,000 points, or it'll just outright kill you. Many devious combinations of perks, and many dangerous deals can be made. Your character can get obscenely powerful before the end of the run you are making, but the little guy will die-- typically in the blood of 2000+ bodies, which is why the game is called 'Crimson Land' in the first place. Not all the perks are unlocked at first, but beating story mode levels will unlock more perks and weapons. (A personal favorite is "Final Revenge." When you are killed, you explode violently, killing everything nearby.)
The weapons are vicious and worthy of mention. From the pistol you start with, to a Gauss Shotgun (think of a quake 3 railgun, only it fires buckshot. yes, you read that right-- a railshotgun.), to a plasma cannon that has a huge blast radius (that doesn't affect you!) with shrapnel, you'll definitely find a weapon you like in this game. Power ups only add to their carnage, such as 'fire bullets' which will temporarily make your bullets go through enemies and deal much more damage. This is especially devastating with an automatic shotgun swiped over the droves of enemies.
Graphics are simple; it's top down, and the general sprites are small. Special effects, such as fire, rockets, etc, are well done, even by modern standards. The graphics are effective overall, and believe it or not, every little detail is captured- and kept on screen. From the massive pools of blood, to the bodies of huge 'boss' characters, to the tiny bullet casings, they all stay on screen and will end up saturating the landscape. It goes to note though, that so much detail is kept that finding your little guy running around can be difficult later on, amidst all the bodies. The game doesn't slow with all of it happening though, which is great.
The sound is interesting and pretty varied. The sawed off shotgun is a nice deep 'thump,' while the gauss gun- a gun that uses magnetics instead of loud, explosive chemicals- is quiet enough to let you hear the thwapping noise the bullets make as they go through the alien meat. The music is usually pretty actiony or bleak, which suits the game just fine. If you were the last guy on Earth fighting off as many aliens as you could, you'd probably put these songs in your MP3 player on a loop so you could at least decompose with some good music playing.
All in all, it's one of the few games that realizes it doesn't take a massive budget, voice acting, and the most overblown graphics in the industry to make a game worth looking at. It gets back to the roots of gaming-- arcade style carnage, that remembers it's just a game instead of an over-done hollywood experience. If arcades were still around in force, this game would probably have eaten up more than it's cost in quarters by the time you were done with it.
You can download a demo -shareware style- from Reflexive Arcade's main website.