Johnny Carnage

Yeah! What am I implying by pointing my finger at my head?
Am I so crazy I might just shoot myself?
Or do I just have my gun in the wrong hand?

Johnny Carnage is a game developed by Milkstone Studios and released on October 6^th 2012. The description from the game states you’ll be rescuing girls from evil skeletons from Mars, and call the game a platformer/shooter. Milkstone Studios has a pretty good track record, with several of their previous games also being very good. Does Johnny Carnage live up to their high quality precedent Milkstone has set for itself in the XBLIG?

I hope you like to murder skeletons from Mars. Actually, I'm
not sure anyone alive could possibly be filled with that
overwhelming desire.

The graphics of Johnny Carnage are brightly colored hand drawn 2-D sprites. I always love seeing games like this because it’s just not something that’s done very often anymore. The character design gives the game a lot of style, something it is otherwise lacking because it’s completely devoid of a plot. There’s no rhyme or reason behind what you’re doing, it’s just something that has to be done. I feel like a few scenes of dialogue would have added a lot to the game, and they could’ve even done something in similar vain to old school SNES games, where the dialogue was usually a fresh pile that only enhanced the game’s old school charm. I loved the way the characters looked, and this would’ve also been a good way to show off the art design of the game. Otherwise, the only thing I didn’t like was the UI in the game, as sometimes the markers for the girls you save or the exit level marker were a bit too big, making it hard to see around them.

As you can see, Johnny is very excited about shooting guns.

Johnny Carnage feels like an old SNES game. Its gameplay is simple without any learning curve to worry about. You have a timer, and when it runs out your dead. Getting hit by enemies takes a chunk out of your time, and saving babes gives you a big chunk back. The objective of the game is to save babes until the exit door opens. When you save five babes, the exit opens and you can leave, or you can stay and save the extra five babes, for a total of ten per level. If you just want to go as far as you can, just get the five and leave. But if you want more points and extra time, stick around and save them all.

Sometimes when you save the babes they'll say things like
"Thank you" or "Ouch!" or "Pizza!"

When you start you’re armed with a simple pistol. Enemies will drop bags of money which you can use at vending machines located throughout each level. Vending machines will dispense guns, grenades, or sometimes just be a turret that can hold off some of the enemies for you while you haul ass to save the babes. Usually gold drops are pretty plentiful, and I almost always was able to run around with better guns than the pistol. My weapon of choice ended up being the flame thrower, because it had a lot of ammo, did a lot of damage, and sometimes I could make a full tank last me an entire level. There are several levels that the game picks from randomly as you play through it, so each play through will be a little different.

Seriously, pizza is not going to help us in this situation. Oh, by the way, thanks
for just leaving after I released you from the block of ice. A kiss or an HJ would've
sufficed. I'd only lose like three seconds.

I really enjoy Johnny Carnage for its old school feel and its challenging gameplay. The game always starts out easy, but quickly piles on the difficulty as you progress through the levels. I actually enjoyed the game so much I'm going to be holding two contests for the game. If you leave a comment on this blog post with your gamertag, I’ll select one at random Monday afternoon and send you a code that will get you Johnny Carnage for free. The game also contains a global leaderboard. Whoever is at the top of the high score list by 12AM on November 23^rd will win a free 400 MSP card. I will send the code to you via your gamertag on Xbox Live. I currently hold the high score at 1,437,540 points, which wasn’t very hard. I just played the game a few times every night for about a week to get some practice in. The game only costs 80 MSP, and you get to support a great indie developer while competing for a prize.