The Chaos Engine AA.Ver(Amiga) CO-OP Playthrough /Let's fix this chaos with lots of lead, shall we?
3The Chaos Engine AA. Version (1993) by The Bitmap Brothers It's a run-and-gun game with a top-down view that hardly needs to be introduced to any self-respecting Amiga player. Definitely one of the most recognized action games on the system, which focuses mainly on the cooperation of two of the six available daredevils, called to fight against the hordes of chaos. The game's plot is very convoluted, as, for all intents and purposes, you can only learn about it from the manual included with the game. But in a nutshell, a certain Baron Fortesque gets his hands on advanced technology, which he later uses to create the eponymous chasu engine, allowing him to experiment on matter and the nature of time and space itself. But of course, during the whole process something went wrong, the engine became a sentient entity and its creator was assimilated with it. After this incident, strange things began to happen and appear in the immediate vicinity of the engine, so serious that an elite group of daredevils was formed with the goal of disabling or destroying the Chaos Engine.
We must admit that the plot is extremely interesting, but unfortunately it was presented so subtly that it is not even worth mentioning.
Graphically Chaos Engine is a really solid production, everything is very detailed, from the character sprites to the maps on which we will move. The version of the game is AA which is the enhanced one designed for the AGA chip, enriched with a larger color palette. The original is practically the same, only color-wise it looks more grayish and gloomy, which has its own atmosphere, and even here I dare to admit that, however, I think it was more in tune with the atmosphere than the enriched one..... but this is already a matter of taste.
The soundtrack, however, is probably the strongest point of the game. The highly energetic and dynamic soundtrack fits in exceptionally well here, creating a unique atmosphere of action-filled gameplay.
Gameplay here is based mainly on shooting, with no jumping or other actions to interact with the environment. We do everything here with lead :) literally. Each of the six characters has different attributes in which he is better or worse than the rest. In addition, at the disposal of each hero is a special weapon, which we can get during the level or simply buy for the money earned. After every two levels we can improve our character's stats such as endurance points, speed, firepower, etc. including even swapping special weapons with other weapons used by non-active characters.
In our gameplay we chose 2 characters who have a lot of firepower and can take something on their chest :P We simply decided that these are the only and most valuable features a good character should have in such a game. Speed plays a rather secondary role here, all the more so when playing in co-op on the same screen, as moving away from each other over greater distances is impossible. The rest of the characters are of course playable, but with these two, however, they seem less useful or, if you prefer, efficient.
A great advantage of the game is its distribution of secrets. There are really a lot of them, and many times we will have to think how to get all those valuable items located somewhere on the map, to which there is no rational way of access.
One could argue that for a game based on collecting valuables, unfortunately, this has been solved in a way unfavorable for the player ......., which means that more than once we'll have to say goodbye to our lives. All the currency that falls out of destroyed enemies disappears after a few seconds, which forces the player to react quickly and decisively, and since enemies love to attack from behind the visible screen...... you probably know what it ends up with.
Poorly guided storyline and disappearance of currency are basically the only serious downsides of this game.
Chaos engine, of course, includes the ability to save the gameplay state by receiving passwords every few levels. So in this respect the game is really fair. Well, unless you run a few levels without focusing on collecting, which may ultimately end the game here because your characters will be too weak to handle the challenges awaiting them.
The difficulty level is quite high, so a slow approach to the gameplay is recommended, especially since this is not a timed game.
Chaos Engine is indeed a very solid game, which we can recommend without much hesitation to any player who appreciates rich gameplay, both single player and Co-op.
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"Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"