To save you all the trouble of reading longwinded pretentious intros and the thousand or so words that'll follow, I'll go ahead and state the obvious: Spinal Breakers kicks some ass. Give it 20 minutes of your time; in return you'll get 20 minutes of solid shooting mayhem, with just the right balance of complexity and raw thrills to keep you coming back for more. The insane sci-fi plot and gruesome visuals provide plenty of icing for your cake.
This game is also one of the rare representatives in the shooting gallery or crosshair shooter genre. If you've played titles like NAM-1975, Cabal, and Wild Guns; then you already know exactly what to expect. For everyone else, here's a bit of a primer. This is a third-person shooter where the player-character crabwalks from left to right shooting everything that moves. Moving the joystick moves both person and cursor. Generally, the person moves at a normal methodical pace while the cursor is quick, a necessity for aiming at and blasting everything in sight. This game also features a dodge roll for avoiding danger. Keep two things in mind when rolling. #1 Be careful that you don't roll from a bad situation into a worse situation. #2 Your roll is not an invincible one. Trying to roll through gunfire will just leave you with a body full of bullets.
Even if you've never played a shooting gallery before, coming to grips with Spinal Breakers won't take long at all. This game utilizes a couple of player-friendly features that were pretty ahead-of-their-time for 1991. Destructible objects have red highlights, which you'll want to shoot since they might be hiding power-ups. The other extremely useful feature is that projectiles will flash when they're close enough to the screen to be imminently dangerous. Yes, bullets, spears, and anything sailing through the air is dangerous, but the flashing is an indicator that you shouldn't be anywhere near them. This is great for measuring threat levels while in a constantly escalating warzone. You'll never find yourself wondering "is that bullet close enough to hit me?"
Starting with WW2-era Germany, Captain Waffle aka you will travel through 7 different times and places. The immediate goal is to fend off the Hildroid menace, who have taken the forms of humans in an attempt to wipe out civilization. Actually, I think civilization has already ended, and you're trying to figure out why. Gah. I probably shouldn't be skipping intros. Anyway, it's not important. What is important is that hundreds of green-blooded soldiers are out to eliminate you. Due to the frequently shifting time periods, you can expect to fight samurai, cavemen, dinosaurs, and so on. It seems like "fighting ancient history with modern weapons" was all the rage for a hot minute, so all of the usual suspects are accounted for.
Most everything you come in contact with goes down in just a bullet or two, but you'll still appreciate the power-ups that can pop out of debris or corpses. I want to give a special mention to the shotgun. It's one of the two temporary weapon upgrades, and it rocks. There's a highly satisfying punch to it, which is really unexpected for any game that predates Doom. The slight increase in coverage makes up for the reduced fire-rate, giving you a great means of clearing the immediate area. Bombs can also be deployed when need a brief respite. Captain Waffle only has one life, but his health meter can last for a long time if you've got a talent for evasion and keep an eye out for restorative med-kits... and waffles. Spinal Breakers is an unserious game in the best way.
The first one or two credits can feel a little overwhelming. Enemies will not stop, and many will literally appear from thin air. That said, I found the difficulty to be pretty well-balanced. My first attempt was a massive struggle, and I died before I could finish the second stage. The next attempt went much smoother, and I got all the way to the (really tough!) fifth boss before dying. Just a little practice goes a long way. However, I suspect the final stage will remain a significant hurdle to overcome. It's very light on power-ups, too light probably. I don't recall seeing any. Maybe that's on me for not being extremely thorough. In any case, the difficulty balance is very good. You can see a lot with one credit and a modicum of effort, and there's plenty of incentivization to perform better thanks to the scoring and health systems. If you can avoid taking hits and build up a large health surplus early on, that can only help with the challenging endgame.
I don't believe I need to subject you all to a big outro, so I'll just say it again: Spinal Breakers kicks some ass. Give it a shot.
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