Good Humor and Weapons Turning World Upside Down. Armed and Dangerous Is the Last Game in the Spirit of Shiny Entertainment
Armed and Dangerous is the second game from Planet Moon Studios that had an original idea for itself. Let's find out what makes it popular even today.
In 2003, Shiny Entertainment entered the latter, unfortunately, worse half of its "life," fully concentrating on developing games based on popular licenses. Nonetheless, at that time, another team was on the rise, namely Planet Moon Studios, which took over the mantle from the developers in Laguna Beach.
Planet Moon Studios has become well-known worldwide due to the game Giants: Citizen Kabuto, which was warmly received by players and reviewers and eventually achieved cult status. After the premiere of this title, its devs eagerly started working on their next, equally original and still noteworthy project. Ladies and gentlemen, here is Armed and Dangerous.
Monty Python in peak form
Armed and Dangerous took us on a journey to the world of science fiction, specifically to the planet Milola. The main characters of the game were mercenaries from the Lionhearts squad, who were tasked with confronting the sinister ruler, King Forge, and retrieving the magical book before it fell into his greedy hands, granting him incredible power.
Lionhearts were led by a soldier named Roman, whom we played during the game, and who seemed to be the most ordinary member of the party. Apart from him, the team included such unconventional characters as Q1-11 - a robot with a design inspired by Roman legionnaires, a mole named Jonesy with a truly explosive personality (making him an expert in, of course, explosives), and the seemingly insane Rexus, whose appearance could evoke comparisons to the movie Gollum (but one who has definitely seen too much in life).
Although the outline of the story presented in the game seemed very serious, the developers followed the path set out by Kabuto and filled their game with British humor. The game contained numerous references to other works of culture, including Monty Python and even... Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings. However, the most important thing is that the devs implemented it skillfully (most likely having a great time doing it), so the whole experience wasn't exhausting (unfortunately, this isn't the standard in games attempting to entertain the player).
This is Milola and here we (mainly) shoot
Most of the time in Armed and Dangerous we looked at Roman's back. The exceptions were the moments when we sat behind the controls of a powerful cannon or an equally powerful heavy machine gun and tore into the enemies attacking us, sending them to the dust in large numbers. Nevertheless, such opportunities occurred quite rarely.
We eliminated enemies much more often, using a wide range of firearms and various combat gadgets. While the game included standard murder tools like machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and mortars, some more unusual elements in the protagonist's equipment deserve attention. Roman could, among other things, use the Land Shark Gun, which shot... sharks diving into the ground and causing panic in the ranks of enemies. Besides, on his forearm, there was a miniature black hole that sucked in everything that entered its field of impact with a one-way ticket. There was also a screw that literally turned the game world upside down, causing enemies to "fall" from it towards the sky. After restoring gravity, they hit the ground again.
Additionally, Roman could make use of a jetpack, which was even dedicated to selected stages. Speaking of levels, the story campaign consisted of 21 missions, during which we visited places such as forest thickets, ice-covered areas, mountainous areas stretching to the horizon, and even a futuristic metropolis. While traversing them, we not only faced enemies but also carried out the quests entrusted to us. Apart from defending specific locations or attacking enemy positions, from time to time we had to, for instance, rescue the residents of Milola and escort them to safe places. As a side note, it's worth noting that in the places we visited, there were pubs where we could rest from the hustle and bustle of battle and regenerate our health.
Completing the campaign took approximately 6 hours, despite the varied adventure and the seemingly impressive number of missions in Armed and Dangerous. The developers also prepared bonus stages - their completion extended the game time by about 3 hours (according to the HowLongToBeat service).
Years are flying by...
Giants: Citizen Kabuto, the first game of Planet Moon Studios, pleased the eye with nice graphics that look good even today. The situation is similar with Armed and Dangerous, although compared to its older sister, the described title seems somewhat "washed out" of colors. However, the designs of the levels, characters (Q1-11!), and equipment elements are still eye-catching.
Implementing characteristic black bars at the top and bottom of the screen was an interesting technique, presumably aimed at achieving a "cinematic" effect. Unfortunately, no one would probably risk saying that this brought the described title closer to movies.
How to play Armed and Dangerous today?
Armed and Dangerous is available both on GOG.com and on Steam (in both cases - $5.99). Players who really want to acquire the boxed edition must prepare at least twice as much; the prices of used copies for PC start from $13, while the edition for the first Xbox costs over $30.
What happened next?
Armed and Dangerous received solid ratings from the industry media. Unfortunately, it was the last game by Planet Moon Studios that managed to reach the mass consciousness of gamers. It's enough to say that the "swan song" of the studio was an arcade game released in 2010, based on the animated film titled Tangled. Shortly after its release in January 2011, Planet Moon Studios was acquired by Bigpoint Games, causing the studio to vanish from the industry radar.
