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Maybe you played Choplifter on your old Apple II and you thought, “Man, this game would
be even better if you could decapitate stick figures.” And if that’s the case, you
should probably seek help, you sick ***. And afterward, go download Stick Man Rescue
and indulge your doodle-based ***.
Developed by Tik Games—as in the Ke$ha spelling, minus the c—Stick Man Rescue really is just
Choplifter if it had been designed by a kid in detention, a situation she finds herself
in because she was trying to get a little tipsy. But fortunately, your pilot is a more
upstanding citizen, so you fly around and rescue stick figures...welcoming them into
your helicopter even if they don’t look like Mick Jagger.
And...swagger. I don’t even have a reason to make these references. I just don’t have
anything else. I don’t have any comparisons...or interesting context. All I have is Ke$ha references.
Anyway...you land near the stick figures, they enter the helicopter and you take them
to safety. It’s a good thing, too, since the bad stick figures have bombs.
And this place about to blow.
Stick Man Rescue is a PlayStation Mini, meaning it can be played on both your PSP and PlayStation
3. The question, of course, is will you want to play it at all...and if you like simple
action puzzlers with a retro feel, Stick Man Rescue isn’t a bad one.
The game plays just fine. You control the helicopter with the analog stick, and you’re
equipped with a machine gun. You can pick up missiles and bombs, as well, and given
how much crap is trying to kill your stick figure pals, you need them. You have to bomb
the hell out of tanks and shoot down blue stick figures trying to push bombs onto your
friends from above. If too many of your friends are killed, you’ll fail the level.
It’s a really simple game and it plays well. But like a lot of Minis, it’s also simple
looking. Stick Man Rescue isn’t much to look at, and it doesn’t offer any replay
value either. Once you complete the game’s 30 levels, there’s no incentive to replay
them. This is a very single-serving game, so to speak.
It also tries to be humorous, giving you creative ways to kill your enemies and even counting
them up at the end of each level. But the problem is you don’t even see those deaths
most of the time, which brings us to another issue I had with the game. So much of the
level is beyond your field of vision, it’s just impossible to keep up with everything
that’s happening. Your boys are getting killed, but you can’t see where or how.
You just hear screams and the squishing of stick flesh. This is horrific.
Ultimately, Stick Man Rescue combines Choplifter and Defend Your Castle into one game that
isn’t quite as good as either. But it’s really not that bad either. And if you’re
looking for a decent Mini with fun retro style, Stick Man Rescue is...well, at least it’s
better than Ke$ha.