Ruff Trigger: The Vanocore Conspiracy reviewed

There comes a time when you have to take a leap of faith.  Everybody's leaps of faith are different whether they are significant like having to sacrifice or moving away with minimal resources.  Or they could be small and pathetic like blind buying a game that's not part of franchise, developed by nobodies and what seems like a furry's wet dream with a gun.  That was my leap of faith...and it only cost me $3 so I could live with that.  But let me tell you something, my leap of faith was not rewarding at all since playing Ruff Trigger: The Vanocore Conspiracy was an exercise in mediocrity in ways that were painful.

Ruff is a bounty hunter, probably the best in the business but the evidence that he is is very weak.  But that doesn't matter since he's about to go on his biggest adventure yet!  There were three cargo ships carrying the adorable animals Piglots, which are simply adorable, crashed spreading Piglots are around.  So Ruff has to come and gather them up.  But what turns out to be a simple job turns into something a lot more when he discovers there's a GASP conspiracy a foot...and then he drinks a weird substance that turns him into a werewolf.

There's one word that was going through my mind while playing this and that was average.  Everything about the gameplay is just average.  It's like everything was made for it work but it wasn't made to be optimized.  And nothing is more obvious when you try to aim your weapons.  First off, you have to press R1 to draw your weapon and aim.  That's not so bad, especially when you press the square button to fire it since it's normal like Ratchet and Clank.  But you it doesn't lock in leaving you to swerve wildly if you have to strafe.  You have to press L1 as well to actually lock in which just feels wrong.  But there is a way to get around it and that's in your werewolf form.  As a werewolf, you can run faster and jump higher.  And there's the added benefit that you can change into the werewolf at will as long as you have enough werewolf power.  This leads the question on why you would change back and other than long range fighting...there really isn't.

But there is one saving grace in this game and that is the music.  It's actually really good and it's one of the most memorable scores I've heard in years.  It's filled with techno beats and amazing strings which only heightens in intensity the longer it goes on.  For a game that does must everything half-ass, this is the only thing that's actually good and the music really serves the game quite well.

But on the whole, this game is just painfully bland and average.  There's nothing really horribly wrong with it.  It does have some nice shooting, a few nice driving stages hampered by bad handling and carrying around those piglots are just too cute.  But it doesn't have an original idea in its head, it can't say anything original and the characters are just boring unoriginal types.  I've said that nothing is ever what's it about but how it's about and how this game goes about it's business is just a terminal volley of mediocrity...shame.

5/10