Boxhead: The Rooms

Frantic and frenzied

Reviewed by Shawn from afro-ninja.com

Boxhead: The Rooms is a fast paced shooting game where you mow down hordes of zombies for high scores. You’re in cramped quarters but you have a virtual armory to work with, so expect it to get frantic fast.

I’ll go ahead and say it right now- the only thing this game does wrong is the control scheme. Boxhead’s movement is controlled with the arrow keys, while pressing space makes him use his weapon. Number keys change weapons (once you acquire them), and you can fire your weapons in eight directions. It works ok, but in my opinion a mouse/keyboard setup would have been far superior, with the mouse wheel being the primary weapon changer. This way strafing and aiming would be simultaneous, without the need to keep moving in a direction to fire in that direction. Also, flash has a problem when pressing multiple directions on the arrow keys in combination with other keys, so this further hampers the setup by limiting your diagonal fire ability.

Control issues aside, Boxhead is still a lot of fun. Five arenas and seven different weapons (each with an upgrade) provide a good mix of scenarios. The arenas each have a unique feature to them- one is closed-in with enemies coming from the sides, another is larger and more open, with enemies coming from the middle, and so on. My personal favorite was the bridge level. You start off with a pistol but once you get to the other weapons you’ll never look back. You’ll already be equipped with the grenades and unlimited-ammo uzi before things start getting hard at all. Switching between many weapons is a pain when you have to glance to the number keys to do so, so I mainly just stuck with the shotgun, grenades, and rocket launcher.

Graphics are so-so, mostly due to the simplistic block style (hey, it’s ‘blockhead’ after all) of everything, and jaggy lines here and there. The effects make up for it though, such as bullet lines, visible bullet contact with the wall, spilled blood, and zombie recoil. No sound track (I’d rather have something custom playing for this anyway) and there’s appropriate sfx for all the weaponry.

Boxhead is classic ‘kills stuff as long as you can’ gameplay, and it’s executed very well. I can’t stress enough how much more I would enjoy this game with a mouse and keyboard setup, and I doubt I’m the only one out there that feels that way. I’ll keep my fingers crossed though.

Click here to play Boxhead: The Rooms






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