Day Seven: Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death
He made a list, checked it twice, and no one is listed under nice
Mayan God of War
This game looks and plays like a God of War clone, but you do a lot of platforming in the jungle accompanied by a floating, talking mask. Sounds more like Crash Bandicoot. Either way, Marlow Brigs is a short game with worse graphics made by people who were paid… less? I’m not sure on that last part, but it’s still worth checking out.
What is it?
Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death is an action/adventure game. Play as the titular Marlow Briggs, a man who dies and is brought back to life by a mysterious mask. Fight your way through a bunch of explosive action sequences to save your girlfriend and enact revenge on the guys that killed you. It’s a low budget God of War that’s actually pretty decent.
It’s a mix of combat, platforming and light puzzle solving, as these games tend to do.
The combat is competent. You have access to four weapons which you unlock gradually throughout the game. Each of them has different attributes, such as speed and range. This game is from the times before we had magnetic combat, so your attacks don’t home in on enemies from across the arena. This means range actually matters. It does the God of War thing where the combos have specific purposes, like a dedicated shield breaker combo, a launcher and such. There’s also magic you can cast, which are big, screen-clearing attacks that do a lot of damage.
Between combat encounters you’ll be doing some platforming and traversal. There are some sections where you have to time your jumps and go through giant death traps that feel like something out of Crash Bandicoot. There’s also some light puzzles where you pull levers or move a cube around. They’re simple, but at least the characters aren’t barking the solution at you after four seconds like in the modern God of War games.
The game is very of its time, for better and worse. It’s very videogamey, which is good. It copies the original God of War pretty closely, heavily borrowing from what made it work. It has a constant forward pace, you’ll always be moving forward, no backtracking, constantly changing environments and making your way through interesting set pieces. The combat density is a bit low, but when there’s combat it’s as an obstacle to your objective and you have to fight the enemies, it’s not like in some modern action games where the combat is completely optional. If you want a good, solid version of what we used to get back in the Xbox 360 era, give Marlow Briggs a shot.
Short
The game can be cleared in around 4 hours. Its brisk pace and constant, forward-pushing momentum makes it easy to get through in one or two sittings.
In terms of replayability, it has a “HARDCORE” difficulty option you can unlock after beating the game. It’s the same game, but a bit tougher.
There are some optional challenges, which are sections from the game presented in minigame form.
Worse Graphics
The game is old, so the graphics look dated, but even back when it released it wasn’t a looker. It does a lot with what it has, at least. Most of its environments stick to a closely related theme; you’ll be spending most of your time in areas that are “jungle, but with X” after you leave the oil rig. Jungle, but with ruins. Jungle, but in a cave. Jungle ruins, but up in a snowy mountain. That sort of thing. It works because it keeps things varied, but it also ties everything together with a coherent theme.
The music is good. Bombastic orchestral movie soundtrack type music. It gets the job done.
Made by People Paid More to Work Less
I think this one counts are “People Paid to Work”. This was made by a now defunct Slovanian studio Zootfly. It had a budget of $5 million, and it made back approximately $45 million. That’s a pretty good return on investment. This game was a downloadable title on Xbox Live Arcade, so there weren’t any manufacturing or distribution costs.
This is why I advocate for smaller games. A budget of five million is a lot more than the other games I’ve covered in this series. I don’t think Hrot’s solo dev spent anywhere near that to develop his game, but it’s nothing for a game in 2013. God of War 3, which this game kind of rips off, came out three years prior in 2010, and it cost $44 million to make. Over eight times Marlow Briggs’ budget. Keep things lean, and you can make more profit while experimenting. Marlow Briggs didn’t experiment, though. It just did God of War again.
Conclusion
I might have made this game sound underwhelming, but it’s not. What makes this game special is that it’s good, even if it shouldn’t be. Everyone who plays this has the same experience. It starts off, you see the crappy visuals, the weird set-up, the janky animations. You think you’re in for a mess of a game, but then it starts, you play it a bit, realize it’s literally just God of War, feel some disdain and disappointment, keep going and slowly, you find that you’re having fun and the game is actually really solid. It surprises you. Sure, if you read this review, you might come into it expecting it to be good from the get-go, but it’s still worth checking out. It’s short and to the point. You get a fun, explosion-filled game for a few hours, it’s good, it doesn’t out-stay its welcome and it’s gone. It’s like a bag of chips.
It also costs about as much as a bag of chips. You can get Marlow Briggs for $5 at full price. It goes on sale every few days, and you can grab it for 99 cents. You get a full Xbox 360 game for the price of a bag of Doritos.
There’s no excuse not to give this one a shot.
