Action News Heroes Review

BREAKING NEWS: Awesome Game Incoming
By Brett Wolfe
Reviewed on Xbox One
Released on July 27th 2016 for Xbox One
Developer: Krewe Studios Publisher: Krewe Studios

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​Hello there and welcome to the Player2Reviews Action News Heroes Review! I am Brett and tonight’s story is on a new game that is taking the world by storm. Some sources say they love it, while some beg to differ. Tonight’s story will be used to set the story straight and let you decide for yourself who is right and who is in the wrong. So without further ado, let us begin with tonight’s report.
 
Action News Heroes was developed by Krewe Studios and is a shoot ‘em up in the same vain as Smash TV. You take the role of one of five different heroes as you are sent to war by Channel X as a gimmick for a new television series. The characters vary greatly from the health they have and the speed at which they move. Two of the heroes, El Nomad and Roxy, move quicker, but in return have less health; while the other three, Zombie-O, Hammer, and G-Zero, are the opposite. The game also has the functionality to modify the loadout of the heroes before starting each stage. Action News Heroes has a large variation of weapons, from assault rifles to shotguns and LMGs to Rocket Launchers. The loadouts also include a special ability that will clear a large majority of the board in the instance of getting swarmed. The game consists of 8 different stages each ending with a boss fight that plays on the style of the level design. Each stage faces your hero against waves and waves of enemies while you are trying to achieve the main objective of the mission. Once you complete the main objective, you are teleported to the boss fight. This game has some great bosses, from a Mutant Zombie to even having you fight against Santa Claus at one point.

The gameplay of Action News Heroes is very easy to get in tune with even if you are not an expert in the genre and you will start understanding what you need to do very quickly. One feature this game has that is new to me with shmups (Shoot’em ups) is the ‘Rating’ bar. This bar makes the game a little bit more difficult than most of the other shmups that I have played. This is due to the fact that if your ratings fall to zero, you lose and if you lose all of your lives (You are given 4.) Gameplay and ratings will come hand in hand when starting this game because you need to fight the enemies to keep your ratings up. If you run past the enemies, your ratings bar will fall drastically and it will be hard to bring it back up. The best way to keep it up is destroying props, exploding barrels, and killing enemies. One thing that is good to note is that this game is surprisingly difficult at the beginning. While it isn’t too difficult, the starting assault rifle is not good at all and you need to beat the first stage before you have the ability to change up your loadout. Once you get through the first stage for this game gets easier and easier.
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*It is also worth noting that if you want the easiest time on this game that once you beat the first level, purchase a shotgun for your loadout. The first shotgun that you can purchase is very good and can help you get through a good portion of the game. There also is a shotgun called ‘MX Blaster’ that cost $50 million (which isn’t that much in this game) and will destroy enemies off of the screen. I would keep this for near the end of the game to help enjoy the game more unless you get stuck*

​The visuals of this game have a late 80s-early 90s feel to them which gives a real nostalgia vibe to it while playing the title.  I feel the visuals really represent what Krewe Studios was setting out to do with this game and I find that they excelled in doing so. The soundtrack on the other hand, while I think it is good, gets pretty repetitive in this game. There is not a large variety in differing sounds, but it isn’t too bad. The cut scenes in Action News Heroes coincide with both of these aspects in the way that they are comic book style. The style really helps with the nostalgia feelings, but don’t help the soundtrack as there isn’t any voice acting to add to the already limited sounds in the game.
In the end, the appeal to this game could go for anyone and I personally really enjoyed this game and I am not a big shmups fan. However, the campaign is rather short (being only eight stages) and it is the only mode in the game. With this in mind the replayability to the game is lower than most other games unless you want to play the story again or grind for achievements, the latter of which are rather easy to get if you are into that.
My final note is that if you enjoy shmups or are just looking for a game that is some mindless fun, I would strongly recommend picking this one up.
 
*This game was provided by Krewe Studios for the purpose of this review

Final Score: 7.5/10

​+Nostalgic Visuals
+Fun Gameplay
+Easy to Get Into

​-Repetitive Sounds
-Low Replayability