Dead Angle (Arcade)

I reckon there's the 2 most used setting in video games that takes place in America: Wild West or Mafia War. Today we shall see the sample of the latter ones: Seibu Kaihatsu's Dead Angle (1988). 

I like the shinny effect on title even though the font is slightly lame. You can guess that that mansion over there is belong to some wealthy mafia family. They got the house but no car can be seen parked. Maybe they're all out for work. Getting out for work in this pandemic time? Utter crazy!    

 

Don't stand in front of the enemy. They will rob your credit right in the face! I get it, game. Just let me start the game without more of your mysterious message!   

 

It's nice peaceful day in the street of Napoli. Until someone's girlfriend/wife/sister/cousin is kidnapped by some mobs. By the way, the car seems too small or it's just me.

 

Of course, the man can't stand idly to see his girlfriend/wife/sister/cousin whisked like that. So he take his gun and start to shoot the kidnapper's associates that try to oppose his idea to rescue the damsel. As you can see, Dead Angle is clearly gallery shooter type of game. Joystick to move your hero, one button to shot his gun within the crosshair, and another button to throw his limited-in-number grenade within the crosshair.

 

Then our hero get grenade right in his face. R.I.P unnamed vigilant. God bless him!

 

Once, i deplete enemy meter (below life meter) by killing enemies, a boss appears and i'm dragged to meet him and later i have to kill him obviously. Unlike the lesser enemies, he requires more than 1-2 bullets to kill. But luckily, he flinched when get shot so i can stunlock him. No big deal. That death pose though. Kind of revolting.    

 

"What do you expect my death pose to be, huh?" as he talks to me angrily. Sensible one, bad sir!    

 

Next fight takes place in boat, i mean the enemies are the ones on the boat. I probably in the dock, flying around. I mean, seriously. Can you explain this phenomenon of me levitating to aim this enemy on upper level of the boat? My theory is i have ability like Rokurokubi but instead of only the head, i can move around my whole upper body. Scout_sf13_influx_big04.wav

 

Weird. This ship has at least 4 captains. They're not function as i gunned down all of them.

 

The boss is a bloke that dual wield handguns. He has more productivity by 100% than the previous boss but he's still easy to deal with. 

 

On closer inspection, he looks either terrifying or terrified. Anyway, we go to United States because they took her there, apparently.

 

At New York harbor, i find someone else who has levitation ability of mine. Too bad, he's enemy. Otherwise we can begin to form 'Flying Gentleman' club soon.

 

Of course, there's power up in this game (and the game will tell you if it spawns outside of current screen), such as: Sawed Off Shotgun, Thompson Submachine gun, crate of grenade to add your grenade and medkit to replenish your health. You need to plant them a bullet to pick them up, of course.  For every shot, the crosshair raise slightly. Maybe it represent blowback effect of my gun. It's kind of realistic but annoying. It forces you to drag down the crosshair everytime you shoot. Even the handgun has too much blowback in my opinion! This is the second complaint of mine about a handgun that has irritating recoil besides the one in Area 51. Thankfully, the shotgun doesn't have bigger blowback than any of the weapons, thus it's the most "accurate" weapon in this game.  

 

This time the boss is that old man but he sure can takes bullet a lot for his age. Maybe his fat layer of his stomach absorbs the bullet impact. So being fat has the benefit, huh? There's hope for me, then.

 

Wait, the old man looks like J. Jonah Jameson. You can see the expression of "I want more Spiderman's photo!" on his face.

 

My raid on mafias continue on some random hotel in New York. I don't know what's with that sketch of childish tank with label Yukai Tsukai. Thing for sure is" i can remove it to reveal crate of grenades. I don't think the crate is full of them because i only get 3 of them when picked up. Judging by its size, the crate should contain at least double of the amount. I suspect there's grenade supply corruption in the mafia family. They only fill it with 3 grenades and the rest is just rocks. Spy_negativevocalization03.wav   

Every level has rather long horizontal stage. When i reach right corner of this hotel level, i find windows and guess what? I can't break one of them with my bullets. Scout_jeers04.wav 

 

The boss is another old man but this one is slim and agile. He jumps around while throwing grenade and knife at me. Unlike gunshot, grenade and knife are visible and you can dodge them easily. You should stick to gun, old timer.

In rather shocking twist, the boss looks like Abraham Lincoln! The mafia influence is really something if it effects the descendant of the 16th president of USA that supposed to be good person.

 

At some farmhouse in Kansas (that probably belong to Dorothy from Wizard of Oz), our her dies by gunshot from the recurring old man. He sustains 2 gunshot wound in the head and one in the thin air near his head. Live is cheap in this game, both enemy's and our hero's. You can see gunshot wound on our hero. If enemy's bullet goes to same spot, the hero die no matter how many remaining life he has. The problem is: enemies seem plant bullet exactly on the same place where the wounds located instead of random spot in his body. I remember about " Don't stand in front of the enemy!" message. But our her here has small capability to aim horizontally or vertically while standing still. So to aim at the enemies, i have to be practically in front of them! It's atrocious, really.

 

Oh, God! They bring armored turret! I don't think it's legit in mafia warfare but it's brilliant idea to bring one (or maybe more) because the turret can't be destroyed by any bullet. Only grenade can bring this thing down.

 

On this level, the boss is just a bloke with mouth mask like common bank robber. Plus he can be stunlocked. Next!

 

Now, we attack on the mansion. That guy has sensible tactic of 'hit and run'. He fires 1 40 mm grenade at me and retreat. Speaking of the A.I. on enemies, they can also crouch, crawl, dodge roll, and run. They're sensible (virtual) persons who has idea on some basic defensive maneuver. Unlike our hero here who can only fly around and shoot enemies within eye contact range. He's barely proper death angel, is what i try to say. That's not typo, it's supposed to be (bad) pun.    

 

The game instruct me to hide behind obstacle to avoid gunshot but most of the level don't have proper cover. There's barrels at harbor level but only protect my chest and lower. My head is still vulnerable. If only i can crouch. In this level, i can hide behind this bushes on left corner and it works! You'll be my best friend, bush!   

 

The boss is that huge bloke not the old man (again). He just happen to be nearby and help the boss to fight me.   

 

This one looks happy. He find peace on his death. It seems mafia work isn't good for him. Godspeed.

 

Now, we're inside the mansion. There's pillars near the center that i can use to cover from bullets. Also i can pretend that i climb them to aim at enemies on 2nd floor. The boss is the same with first ones so no need for me to show him to you.

 

Now we're about to deal the godfather himself but there's invincible bullet-proof glass that is between me and him. Is that my girlfriend/wife/sister/cousin? She's extremely calm.

 

As you expected from final stage, there will be boss rushes (but the jumping old man is nowhere to be seen again) along with dozens of common goons. If you run out of live here, you have to restart from the beginning of this level unlike others where you can continue where you left off. This may seems harsh but you can take cover in these small pillars so skilful play is quite appropriately facilitated.   

 

The enemies are all goner but the level still goes on. You have to break the bullet-proof glass that protect the big boss. If you somehow depletes the shotgun/submachine gun for the enemies, you will have rough time to crack it with your handgun because there's no autofire feature here (except when wielding submachine gun) so you have to muster your mashing button skill in this section. Although there's no enemy around here, you mustn't let your guard down as there grenade thrown at you from thin air!

 

Once you break the glass, the big boss will do the usual "taking hostage" technique. He hold the damsel while try to shoot you. If the damsel get shot, it's instant game over. Killing his loved one really take heavy toll on himself. 

 

Accuracy is the key to defeat The Big Boss. You have to shoot him at the right spot and time. He will reveal himself a bit when he try to take a potshot at you. Aim slightly left of them and you will get him eventually.

 

There's no closer inspection on The Big Boss himself because he's thrown out of window like Belger in Final Fight. Even though i believe i use the lame pistol to finish him off. He's such drama queen.

 

Instead we can see the lady's face in close range. She's like Marilyn Monroe but with less hair and more forehead.

 

Seibu Kaihatsu's Dead Angle (1988) is simple arcade gallery shooter. It's as basic as you can get. You drag the crosshair (along with the hero) at the enemy and pull the trigger, that's it. But there's some apparent problem here. Besides the lack of defensive mean, the hit detection also the problem. Despite the chunk size of enemies, the hit detection is hairy. Sometime my shot doesn't register to hit enemies for no reason. Grenade explosion has larger hit spot though. Good thing, the bosses feel pain whenever get shot so they're not tough damage sponge that entirely tedious to deal with. The gameplay is repetitive without extra meaningful feature although the game is quite short, consisting 8 stages. Shotgun is simply the best weapon. It has large hit spot, deal larger damage, and has recoil no bigger than other weapon. Enemy's gunshots are hard to dodge. Thrown knife and grenade is instant death if hit but you can shot them away during their travel. The sound effects are good except for the player's handgun sound. It's like the sound produced by someone beating a pillow with iron pipe. The music aren't loud enough but have rhythm that appropriate with the Italy-America mafia era. The artsyle is wonderful homage of early American comic style.

 

Seibu Kaihatsu's Dead Angle (1988) is not so great arcade game. I have more good time playing Hard Times than this game [Kind of irony]. But it has amusing story where a single bloke that on his quest to save his loved ones ends up lessen the workload of The Untouchables by ± 80%, judging by how many corpse count that he did.