Captain Wayne – Vacation Desperation is a funky, offbeat shooter made in the Doom engine that I’ve been looking forward to since trying it’s demo over two and a half years ago. Its launch has come with an added pleasant surprise as well: The full game, including a campaign and endless horde mode, is available on Steam for only $10.
The vibe is like Spongebob and Wario Ware by way of Duke Nukem: Anarchic and nautical and gleefully stupid. The way Captain Wayne perfectly nails a ’90s cartoon look in active gameplay also reminds me a lot of Pizza Tower.
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The whole arsenal has a great feel to it: One real winner is Captain Wayne’s machine gun, which has to spin up like a mini gun and shakes the entire screen as it empties your entire ammo reserve in a matter of seconds. It’s hard to stand out as a videogame shotgun these days, but the one in Captain Wayne has a great sound and feedback, this excellent two-shot pow pow chk chk rhythm that really clicked with me.
Instead of a rocket launcher, you get a classico ship’s cannon that launches its projectiles in a languid arc before they roll around, blowing up after a set time or contact with an enemy, almost like a riff on the Demoman’s grenade launcher from TF2.
On the enemy front, I once again turn to Spongebob Squarepants, “Bob l’éponge” as the French call him. They all feel like the weird little background gag fish who yell “my leg!” or something. My favorite design has a unique mechanical twist as well: A little boxing glove-wearing pugilist who can block almost all your ranged weapons, and is best handled mano a mano in melee.
My second-biggest pleasant surprise, after the supremely reasonable price, has been Captain Wayne’s infinite horde mode. It feels like a very carefully designed thing, with a unique rhythm and bigger maps than I’m used to seeing in indie boomer shooter wave modes. One touch I appreciate is that Captain Wayne’s horde maps are conspicuously generous with their respawning ammo, health, and armor pickups, but they quickly prove necessary with how frantic and challenging things get.
Captain Wayne is a good time and a great hang, and it deserves your attention amid this crazy autumn for good games. It’s also on sale on Steam for $9 until December 9, if ten bucks weren’t already enough of a bargain.
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