Crazy John

"Crazy" is one of those words, like "genius," that has had its meaning diluted through overuse.

It used to be a slightly impolite term for someone affected by a psychiatric disorder. Now it seems to mean slightly eccentric or nonsensical.

Crazy John is the name of the new game by developer Triniti Interactive, though it’s anything but. Instead, it’s a solid, if not prosaic twin-stick shooter.

Rather than bizarre originality, Crazy John seems perfectly level-headed in its choice of inspiration: twin-stick survival shooter Minigore. It adopts the same square-headed art style, but drops the impressive 3D engine in favour of a retro-tinged 2D zombie invasion.

The gameplay harks back to the kind of 16-bit shooters of the early 1990s. While the control system is a familiar twin-stick variety – left stick to move, right to shoot – the action is firmly fixed to eight directions of movement and shooting.

While this makes the combat more clinical and immediate than its counterparts, it also makes the action feel constricted – especially when you find yourself surrounded by a vast horde of shuffling zombies.

The level structure feels clunky, too. Placed into a succession of random environments, you’re given a string of repetitive missions that boil down to the same 'go here on the map', 'survive for X seconds', or 'beat this boss' types. It could get boring pretty fast.

That it doesn’t is down to a couple of compelling touches including a progression system that allows you to level up your abilities and buy new weapons, with a funding system that carries on regardless of the Game Over screen.

Even more than that, there’s something inexplicably satisfying about the core combat, despite the repetitive mission design and rudimentary controls. Perhaps it’s the satisfying splat that accompanies each zombie's (second) death, or the giant robot you get to rampage around in when you save enough survivors.

Whatever it is, Crazy John proves to be a lot more fun than its limited design would suggest. There are better twin-stick shooters out there, but if you’ve played them all this is worth a visit.