Game Review: 60 Seconds!

The game which I am going to review today is one that I have been playing a lot in the recent times, it's called 60 Seconds! This neat little indie game was released back in May of 2015 for the Steam platform. It was developed and published by a small company called Robot Gentlemen, which happens to consist of a team of people who are well versed in the video game industry, having games like Fable and the Witcher series under their belts. It is available to play on the android and iphone platforms in addition to being available on Steam, so you have a few different ways to check it out. The version which I am reviewing is the Steam version, which runs for $9.99 while not on sale. 

The format of the game is in the style of a point and click type adventure game, though it's certainly not what I would consider an adventure type of game. What it really is is a dark comedy game which has some survival elements thrown in along with a choose your own adventure style narrative driving the game forward. Your main goal of the game is to try and survive long enough to find yourself either rescued or on another ending path of the game, which happens in a few different ways. 

The game takes place sometime in the 1950's, placing you into the shoes of Ted and the rest of his family while they huddle down in their bunker and try to survive a nuclear attack that has besieged the USA. As the title suggests, you get a minute of time at the start of the game that actually has an interactive section of gameplay where you run from room to room and grab as many objects as you can to bring into your bunker. After the minute is up, what you have is what you get and you need to make sure you're in front of your bunker door before the time is up or, well, you'll end up as a pile of vaporized ash. 

Now, it's a bit more complicated than how I just put it. Once the air raid sirens start up, you do get 60 seconds to start grabbing items for your shelter. You also have to try and grab as many family members as you can along with these items, and since you only have 2 hands you can only carry so much at one time. You can carry up to 4 things at once, with some items/people counting as multiple slots. You'll have to run back and forth from your bunker entrance to drop your items in before you can grab more. 

I found this part of the game to be the most difficult, to be honest. This is due to the less than great controls that you get for it, and only after messing around with my sensitivity settings on my laptop could I at least get an okay control over my characters movements, and even then I wasn't all that happy with it. Between the sloppy response and controls and all of the obstructive objects laying about your home, you'll find yourself having a hard time grabbing everything you want to get before you run out of time. 

Though I consider Scavenge mode to be what I would consider to the main mode of the game, it isn't the only one which allows you the option to try and retrieve your own gear to survive the nuclear apocalypse. There are 3 other modes which you can play, which all are a bit different from one another. The very first option you're offered is the Atomic Drill game mode, which has a tutorial built into it to teach you how to operate the game and give you an idea on how everything works before you really jump into it. 

Then there's also the apocalypse mode of the game which is a combination of scavenge mode and survival mode, minus the tutorial of course that you get from the Atomic Drill mode. And, there's also the previously mentioned survival mode which is a bit different than the other modes as you don't get a 60 second timer and the chance to find your own gear. In survival mode, you just get spawned in your bunker randomly along with your family and pre selected items that the AI has chosen for you. At times, you may also find yourself not getting a certain family member, with only 2 or 3 members of the family depending on what difficulty you're playing on. 

A big part of the survival once you get in the bunker during these game modes is rationing your supplies which happen to be cans of tomato soup along with bottles of water, and of course making choices on sending your characters out on expeditions, choosing whether or not to open the door to strangers, and what you want to do when random events or raiders come to your door which can offer you rewards or horrible, horrible fates for your characters in the bunker. Some random events can happen inside the bunker which tend to be a bit odd for the most part, though most of the events in this game are odd and bound to make you laugh quite a bit. 

 

So, what does the gameplay style become like after you've gone down to your bunker and started rationing the supplies out while waiting around? Well, it goes from a 3rd person overhead style game where you run around gathering items/family members, to something akin to what a visual novel would be like, though the only location you'll get to see for your characters is the background of your nuclear bunker. as you sit and wait for help. 

You progress throughout the narrative by use of a daily journal which recaps the events, thoughts and needs of your characters for that specific day. Letting you know if your characters are starting to go crazy, or if they need food or water so they don't starve to death or get too dehydrated. It also is through this journal that you can make your choices on sending people out on expeditions to try and gather items, and to also make your choices when events start happening to your characters. 

Now, there are quite a few randomized events which can occur while you're playing, some taking place inside of your bunker, but most of them will either be visitors popping up at your door, or things going on in the wasteland somewhere. Most of these events really aren't that good, and you'll definitely be hoping that you have as many defensive items as you could possibly have on hand to make sure you stay alive for as long as possible, at least until raiders come in and steal your family! 

Now besides having to ration your supplies and defend your home, you've got other issues you also have to worry about while playing this. At times, your characters may fall ill from wounds they incurred from exploring the wasteland, or just from a random event in your shelter. If you don't have a medkit on hand for when this happens, then things can become really difficult and you're more than likely bound to lose someone. Another issue is the insanity meters that each character has, though none of them are actually shown. You'll need to try and complete tasks to raise your sanity upwards, otherwise your characters might snap which eventually leads to them leaving the bunker in absurd ways. 

Each time you start up a playthrough it is a mostly unique experience and things can and probably will go totally different from your last attempt and playing through the game. The items are randomly generated, so you'll never be able to memorize the layout of them if you're playing through the scavenge mode, and it'll be up to luck on what kind of goodies you'll actually end up with. Each playthrough will last you between 25-60 minutes depending on how long you can keep your characters alive for. There are a few different happy endings, and even more unhappy endings which you can get with this game, which gives it a decent amount of replayability. 

60 seconds is a fun, weird little game that seems like it takes influences from visual novels and then combines that with some influences from the Fallout series as well. The majority of the gameplay is learning what consequences your choices will have for your characters, and what to do to mix things together well enough so you can walk away with a happy ending. While this isn't a game I would recommend you play everyday, it's definitely got a lot of entertainment to it for the smaller price tag it comes with. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone who thinks it sounds neat so far! 

Thanks for checking out my review! Hope you've enjoyed it!