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Convoy

Convoy

We've been dodging rocks and firing shots in a wasteland filled with raiders and privateers.

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Rocks are the bane of my existence in Convoy. Deadly, car-crushing, game-wrecking rocks. They've single-handedly put the kibosh on several of my attempts to complete this Mad Max-themed tactical roguelike, and if you ask me, these rocks are far too... hard. Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll come back to the rocks in a minute.

Convoy is a quirky vehicular roguelike-like that marries up the car-based combat of the Mad Max movies with the permadeath sensibilities of FTL: Faster Than Light.

The player's ship crashes on a planet and is in need of repairs, with the four parts needed to fix it dotted across the surrounding desert. This world, Opek Prime, is filled to the brim with nasties who want nothing more than to shoot you in the head, and so in a heavily armed convoy of vehicles you must explore a huge map and retrieve the parts you need to get the hell out of town. The world map you're travelling across is dotted with markers and randomised scenarios; these encounters are explained by text, and often play will descend into a rolling skirmish with several units blasting each other with guns, lasers, rockets and the like.

Conceptually it's a tempting proposition, and for the most part it delivers much as you'd expect and want it to. There's plenty of combat, with fast-paced battles taking place as swarms of enemy vehicles seek to put your primary vehicle - the MCV - off the road and out of commission (at which point it's game over). Defence comes from your own entourage, all of which can be outfitted with weapons, and upgraded at regular intervals. Different units can be equipped with a range of items, so some are more adept at combat, while others might be better at absorbing damage. You can upgrade the MCV too, giving it mines and other such tricks (although these abilities are all tied to cooldown timers, whereas supporting units fire automatically).

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Combat is top-down and takes place in real-time, although you can pause the game and plan your attacks before jumping back into the action. Each weapon has its own benefits; some have greater range, others deal more damage, another might let you take several shots or even strip away a shield. You can even ram your enemies with melee weapons. Finding a nice balance for each vehicle, and then across the whole convoy, is the key to success. When it works, and you manage to assemble a competent weapon system, the vehicles in your charge can become devastatingly effective. It's just a shame then that you're also extremely vulnerable to the elements.

The MCV holds a steady - and mostly safe - path through the middle of each real-time encounter. On either side of that path, at regular intervals, rocks and obstacles will appear that permanently destroy any vehicle that they touch. Sometimes, if you're paying attention to the combat, you'll see them too late. At other times you might notice them with time to spare but still not be able to move out of the way, or your cars might even box each other into a position where it's impossible for one of them to escape. With the exception of the MCV it can happen to any unit, whether it's a brand new truck going down in flames during the very first battle, or your super car that you've been nurturing and upgrading across several missions.

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The permadeath does exactly as intended; it adds tension to every encounter. It also makes upgrades and experimentation extremely important, and success in combat rests on finding a potent mix of offensive options. On the other hand, the obstacle dodging is a total pain and feels overly-punishing. So many positive experiences were soured by near-inescapable collisions, made more frustrating when you can see the destruction coming, but the steering is - at least in the early game - so sluggish that you can't get your truck out of the way in time. (It's a shame that after a battle there's no way to go back and repair units that have been lost to environmental collisions, or even scavenge the wreckages for the equipment and parts that have been spent on them.)

There's other difficulty spikes, moments where your death feels unfair. One example might be the side quest I discovered and followed it to its conclusion whereby I was met - quite out of the blue - by an enemy that was so hopelessly powerful that my whole convoy died in double-quick time. This was the end of a promising run, one where I'd been playing for some time, I'd upgraded all of my vehicles, and completed plenty of missions. There were several examples just like this, where death came out of nowhere, and it was these moments (along with all the rock-smashing) that were by far the most frustrating.

I don't want to sound overly negative, because there's actually much to admire. Visually it feels very cohesive, and the pixelart is chunky and charming. The enemy loadouts are quick and easy to decipher, and there's a clarity to the overall visual language that makes the whole thing accessible and easy to pickup.

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The combat, especially once you've levelled up and increased the abilities of your convoy, is largely enjoyable. Yes, it can get monotonous after awhile (the concept doesn't allow for masses of variety in this area), but there's opportunity for evolving strategies and fist-pumping moments of satisfaction. Once you've found a groove it's fun to watch the battles unfold, even if there's perhaps not enough nuance to the mechanics to make them totally engaging; instead of micromanaging the convoy, you'll often spend much of your time watching the units blast away at each other, with one eye firmly on the right side of the screen in case any rocky terrain pops up. And then, when things do get really interesting and you're juggling lots of things in the air all at once and having a fantastic time, inevitably that's when your favourite truck will crash into a pylon and be lost forever.

There's some nice scenarios for players to discover, and while some of these can blow up in your face and ruin your game if you're unlucky, there's genuinely characterful moments in there (and there's a lot of homage to be found dotted across the map as well). If anything, the textual encounters could have been more plentiful, and an even larger number would've possibly provided a better counterbalance to all the fighting. Ultimately, most of the people you meet on this most hostile of planets are out to kill you and after a while it can start to feel a bit overwhelming; a bit more diversity and some extra personality would've no doubt helped.

Resource management is hugely important, and running out of fuel is a very genuine concern (although you are given a chance to fight for more if you run out). Similarly, the spare parts you pick up on your journey are used to repair your vehicles, upgrade them, and buy more fuel; if you don't have a surplus you're going to find it very difficult to progress. The story scenarios might throw up a couple of thought-provoking questions from time-to-time, but the most interesting decisions you'll make involve choosing between upgrading your convoy and investing in the fuel and repairs needed to get you from A to B.

The map is big, and filled with contours that slow your progress, with mountainous areas using up more fuel (the darker the terrain, the smoother it is and thus the easier it is to traverse). The actual shape of the map is the same for every pass, but the hex-grid that lays over the top is coloured differently each time, with each of the three colours representing one of the factions that you'll be encountering on your travels. The markers that you're heading to also move about with each new game. It alters the layout to an extent, however there's not masses of variety between the enemies you're regularly fighting, so it doesn't change all that much. The same can also be said for the side-quests, with some of the missions popping up more frequently than you might like.

Repetition is the chief thing that holds Convoy back. That, and the rock-hard difficulty spikes. There's plenty of fun to be had here, with some interesting systems cleverly meshed together to create an engaging experience, albeit one that can frustrate after prolonged periods of play and that can, at times, feel unfair. It's a challenge for sure, and a charming one at that, but it also lacks that touch of finesse and variety needed to make it an essential experience. If you're looking for a new roguelike in the vein of FTL, by all means give it a go, but don't expect the barren wastelands herein to offer the same richness as Subset's hike across space.

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07 Gamereactor UK
7 / 10
+
+ Great concept, some nice ideas, entertaining scenarios and an interesting premise.
-
- Combat can get a bit repetitive, some harsh difficulty spikes.
overall score
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