Underworld of madness

Back in the day, games were designed to be fun and challenging at the same time, without too much regard for your sanity. Some games required tremendous skill and patience to be finished, while others just continued to get harder and harder forever. While not all of them were brilliant, it’s nice to stumble into a retro game from time to time and remember how things used to be.

Underworld of madness is an arcade platformer with run’n’gun gameplay mechanics. As such, your only goal is to keep going forward and shoot everything that crosses your path. Traps try to slow you down and enemies empty their guns on you as soon as they get a glimpse of you. However, with enough patience and dedication, it is entirely possible to reach the end.

There is no story to worry about in this case, which is obviously a very good call. Rather than make a half-assed attempt at some kind of basic plot and boring characters, the developer just provided us with a fun game instead, which is the best approach anyway. In fact, this kind of platformers do not even need a story to be fun.

Trampolines, tricky jumps and many other classic platformer cliches are available too, so it should be a real delight for any old school gamer. You can find better weapons along the way, such as shotguns, revolvers and rocket launchers. While it would be wise to save the more powerful arsenal for when you are really going to need it, there’s nothing to stop you from doing as you please.

As far as the technical aspects of the game are concerned, everything is designed to resemble the 8bit era, so don’t expect much in this regard. The characters are merely crude stickmen in different colors, while the environments are built using only one texture. On the other hand, that shouldn’t interfere with your ability to have fun and relive the good old times once more.

Underworld of madness has what it takes to wake the part of you that enjoys a challenge. The level design is decent, and the input is responsive enough not to get frustrating in the long run. The difficulty level is high enough to provide anyone with a challenge.