Getting lost in a dark and dingy parking lot can be stressful enough. Add in flesh eating zombies and psychedelic drug trips, and you’re in for one hell of a ride. This is the basic premise GARAGE: Bad Trip, a new top down twin stick adventure game from Zombie Dynamics and tinyBuild Games.
You take control of Butch, a lone wanderer in this hell of a parking lot. Butch awakens confused and concussed from the trunk of a crashed car in a dark and mysterious parking garage. He has little idea of where he is and less of an idea of how he got there. Soon after Butch’s awakening, he learns that he’s not alone in this place. A zombie outbreak has engulfed the structure and Butch must survive against the undead, mutant rats, and biological experiments gone awry in order to escape alive.
Those familiar with Hotline Miami or Zombie Nation will be right at home with GARAGE: Bad Trip. Moving through the shadowy catacomb of cars, players will be able to utilize a number of found and crafted tools and weapons to progress. You start out with only a simple kick or punch combo to defend yourself, move and break objects, or open doors. But it won’t be long before Butch fills out his arsenal with an axe, firearms, and even grenades. Each weapon you find is considerably stronger than the previous but has trade offs that may make you reconsider ditching what came before. The shotgun packs a huge punch, but has shorter range and smaller ammo capacity, making the handgun the more attractive choice in some scenarios. Handguns can be unloaded at a rapid pace, but I found myself turning back to the axe more often than not. The axe does a surprising amount of damage and can strike and dismember multiple zombies in close range if timed correctly. It also has a charge ability allowing you to take out the undead in one swipe if you’re so lucky. While I was initially excited at the thought of finding new and more powerful weapons as I moved through the garage, I was constantly going back to the axe, making the allure of finding new tools less and less appealing.
Where GARAGE: Bad Trip occasionally distinguishes itself is in the use of mind and screen altering drugs. Butch is no stranger to the drug world, and will periodically come across familiar hallucinogens. Without hesitation, Butch consumes these items to aid in his progression and cope with his confusion and fear. These drugs change the appearance of the level, the music, and even offer super human perception abilities. Along with the boss fights, these sequences add very unique set pieces and really help to change up the tension and horror themed pace.
Bosses in the game are thrilling, intimidating, and disturbing. They require diligent use of dodges and rolls and a varied handling of Butch’s arsenal. However overall enemy variety is lacking in GARAGE: Bad Trip. You’ll come across the same zombies throughout the garage, some with different skins but each with similar attack and aggression patterns. When they see you, they scream and charge at a quick pace. However, dodging backwards and moving them off screen will cause the enemies to slow to a walk, giving you time to heal and regroup. If Butch gets cornered by multiple enemies, it’s almost always a sure death as health depletes quickly. The garage is also littered with very angry and hostile rats. These rats are very difficult to target and are only effectively dispatched with a kick or two. They normally appear in groups and get extremely aggravating. They don’t add as much of a challenge as they do a frustrating and persistent annoyance. I much preferred the larger rat variants who came with many more hit points, but are easier to attack with axes and guns.
Also impressive are the diverse approaches to story delivery in GARAGE: Bad Trip. As mentioned from the outset, Butch has little understanding of where he is, what exactly is going on, and how it all happened. The game follows the typical zombie movie narrative of uncovering clues about the source of the outbreak and who is responsible. In a game this simple, I fully expected this to play out through a singular form such as dossiers strewn around the environment. But to name a few, GARAGE: Bad Trip utilizes cut scenes, hallucinations, radio and television broadcasts, and letters or notes found around the garage. A lot of this can be missed. The broadcasts as an example are often found coming from radios and televisions that need to be uncovered and switched on in order to get the story snippets. The subject matter isn’t anything groundbreaking but I was intrigued with it all nonetheless and was more concerned with not missing the story elements rather than the tools and weapons. This is all accompanied by a very cool synth based soundtrack. Ambient music aids in building suspense and the music kicks in just at the right time when things get really hectic or kaleidoscopic.
Recommendation: Not without its frustrations, GARAGE: Bad Trip offers players a sometimes fun and challenging twin stick adventure. It’s enveloped in an intriguing story line and boasts a memorable soundtrack. With a low cost of entry, the game offers value, some enjoyment and is worth a look, even if for just a bit.
GARAGE: Bad Trip is available now on Nintendo Switch and launches on Steam on July 6th, 2018.
GARAGE: Bad Trip was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion.
Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.
