Armed and Dangerous review (Xbox)

Armed and Dangerous is the latest game from Planet Moon Studios, the company behind the goofy, imaginative, and well-received PC and PS2 shooter, Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Humor in games can be a pretty hit-and-miss affair, and while not every single joke in Giants was laugh-out-loud funny, it still managed to be a funny game without feeling fake or forced. Armed and Dangerous features the same humorous spirit as Giants while it also produces a fairly good--though somewhat simplistic--mission-based third-person shooter.

Armed and Dangerous puts you in the role of Roman, a man in charge of a group called the Lionhearts. This four-member group of thieves, made up of Roman, a Scottish moleman named Jonesy, a British robot named Q, and a stinky little blind mystic named Rexus, is on a quest to steal the all-powerful Book of Rule from the evil King Forge. Along the way you'll encounter objectives that sidetrack you from your quest, most of which involve you saving local villagers who have been enslaved or kidnapped by the king's men. Additionally, you'll blow up a lot of stuff.

In motion, Armed and Dangerous is a pretty straightforward behind-the-back third-person shooter. There are some twists to the formula. For instance, in some missions you'll have a jet pack that lets you jump and glide, while in others, you're able to issue basic attack and defend commands to the rest of your team. There are a few stationary turret levels, but, for the most part, your job is to look at your compass, run in the direction it indicates, and shoot anything that gets in your way.

The arsenal at your disposal adds some individuality to the gameplay, but most of the more unique weapons go underused due to the insanely useful machine gun you start almost every single mission with. The machine gun has a wide aiming circle, and the game's auto-aim is so accurate that you'll rarely miss a shot. Even the sniper rifle's usefulness is greatly reduced, as you merely need to point the machine gun in the direction of a faraway target, move forward until the reticle lights up, and pull the trigger until your target falls. You can disable the auto-aim (if you're feeling tough), but at that point, the game's hundreds of troops become a little too difficult to hit, thus swinging the difficulty scale a little too far in the "maddeningly difficult" direction.

Aside from your basic gun and the incredibly handy machine gun, you'll encounter a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher, a mortar cannon, and a land shark launcher, which causes a shark to "swim" under the ground's surface before attacking enemy soldiers from below. You also have secondary weapons, like standard sticky bombs, a portable black hole, a traitor bomb (which makes enemies attack each other), a knockout bomb, and a weapon that lets you turn the entire world upside down for a few seconds, thus causing enemies to fall into the sky while you hang on for dear life to a corkscrew that's been drilled into the earth.