Whiplash

Time to help Spanx and Redmond weasel their way out of that nasty lab...

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By this point in the life of the platform game things must be getting tough for developers keen to give life to a new creation. From manic miners and bubble bobblers to sonic hedgehogs and Italian plumbers right through to alien cats paired with robots and a bloody voodoo doll, you would think that the well of inspiration from where new platform characters are drawn would have run dry. But the appearance of the two fellas in this twisted game puts pay to such apocalyptic notions. I mean, a weasel with electrode wires protruding from his head chained to a bunny so exposed to cosmetics that his fur is like a shield of steel? Either the well is deeper than expected or something strange and depraved lurks at its bottom.

Whiplash charts the attempts of these two escapees as they attempt to make their way out of the Genron complex where they have, up until now, spent their lives as test subjects in the animal laboratories. Once an explosion in the lab sets the two free in an enjoyable introductory cutscene you are given control over the weasel Spanx and the rabbit Redmond. An unknown benefactor has control of the PA system and informs our two freaked out protagonists that if they follow his instructions he can lead them to an exit and freedom. And thus the action begins. A quick and dirty tutorial sets you up nicely and in no time at all you're freeing caged chimps and smashing up evil scientists and their nefarious lab equipment. The controls are pretty simple to learn. The lower trigger buttons cause Spanx to dash along in a low sprint, with the bunny bouncing pathetically along behind. Redmond shows his true powers when it comes to smashing things. The rabbit is indestructible, so with each swing on the chain he deals damage to whatever he hits. Combat with the humans is a button mashing affair as you just have to keep hitting them until they go down. Later on the baddies will get guns and electric prods and some will even try to recapture you, a fate easily avoided by hauling back on the left thumbstick. When you do knock an enemy down you gotta give em a few more whacks so they'll give up the Hypersnacks that each and every foe carries. These Hypersnacks are the games xp, collect enough and the escapees will go up a level. Because only Spanx can get hurt he gets an extra dollop of hitpoints for each scrabble up the evolutionary tree. Redmond, on the other hand, benefits from increased damage: an effect that will show itself in more colourful animations as the levels of the two continue to rise.

You have the ability to muck around with the Hypersnack distribution levels but this is unnecessary and it can be dealt with painlessly. Each time you complete a stage your unknown mentor will reward you with a boon, a choice of one from three different sets of rewards. You can upgrade the effect of Hypersnacks which is a good long term investment. Or you can start to collect one of the many finishing moves. These are satisfying to let off, even if the closeness of the levels will often obscure the full blooming of the animations. Alternatively you can opt to upgrade your map. That's right; our two furry friends have access to one of the most complicated maps ever seen in a game. Somewhat reminiscent of Doom's perplexing wireframe aid Whiplash has a fully rotatable-zoomable 3D map. If you've so chosen you can eventually have this thing showing every object on every level, but as it is a visually confusing array of vent shafts and corridors connecting obtusely shaped caverns the usefulness of the map is unfortunately restricted. A double shame as this game has no compass pointing you in the right direction. Which although in some way challenging, the design of each of the huge sprawling levels, and the need to backtrack along routes you have already travelled, can all too often leave you stumped as to where the hell to turn next. This was a particular problem I had with Whiplash; I could eventually work out what I was meant to be doing and where the hell I needed to be to do it, but this was only after trawling through the list of levels and seeing which ones had uncompleted missions and trekking off in that direction. Whiplash really needs a journal which tells you what you are expected to do, but as it is I was left floundering too often.