Ah! What The Fuck Is That?! – Review

There are times in a gamer’s life when a mere rumour of a game can prompt years of anticipation, eventually leading to responses comprising of nothing more than “Fallout 4″ whenever an un-named developer dares to post anything on social media that doesn’t contain the word “Fallout” and the number “4″ next to each other.  There are also times when, right out of the blue, an unknown developer’s title will appear as a small blip on your radar and you feel compelled to give it a shot even though you know nothing about the game, and the only thing you know about the developer is that they bought an Alienware laptop because it looked pretty.

Appearing on my radar this week was “AH! What The Fuck Is That?!” by ZeroMark, which definitely isn’t Asteroids and definitely doesn’t have sound effects made entirely by a human voice.  Okay, it actually is just Asteroids and the sound effects are definitely just someone going “dedoo dedoo” into a mic, with the occasional “system repaired” thrown in with as much enthusiasm as a middle-class gamer from Giffnock who has been dragged to a cocaine party in Govan.

The premise is simple – you’re piloting a craft which, as well as being able to rotate through 360 degrees using the mouse, can also be moved in any direction using the standard WASD configuration.  A left-click of the mouse will fire off a double-laser cannon, along with the glorious “dedoo dedoo” sound effect, and every now and again a First-Aid symbol will appear which, if you’re quick enough to catch it, will repair the ship and remove any of the custard that becomes stuck to it whenever you’re hit by any of the enemies.  These enemies are purple ladybird-like creatures which vary in size between slightly smaller than your ship to around twice the size of your ship.  There’s no venom being spat at you, so it’s relatively simple to stay alive by sitting in one place and firing at everything as it comes towards you.

After twenty-five enemies have been killed, the game reaches completion.  There are no waves of increasingly fast enemies, no introduction of huge enemy craft to destroy humanity, and no real objective.  There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, though, and I haven’t made a video game since the text adventure stopped being a cool thing so ZeroMark is already one up on me.  Ultimately, the game ends as quickly as it was made, presumably.  I’ve played it through a dozen times, with the volume louder each time so I can hear whatever the hell else is being said.  It needs a Tie Fighter in there for good measure, that’s for sure.

This may end up being the smallest review to ever grace the pages of GamingLives, but it’s all just a bit of fun.
PS – the score isn’t genuine.

• The voiced sound effects
  
• It's totally just Asteroids, and that's still amazing on the Vectrex
  
• My mate made it during his lunch time working for the NHS

• No secondary waves
  
• Would be better if you could just keep going to see how many you can kill
  
• Technically, it's financed by the NHS so it'll likely break

From a technical point of view, "Ah! What The Fuck Is That?!" has as much going on under the hood as your average Big Brother contestant and the name probably came about after the game was finished and played for the first time. It still works, however, and is both free and available nowhere so we mustn't grumble.

Our review policy

• From Acorns to Fish
• Alone In The Dark
• Why Borderlands is Better Than Borderlands 2
• Falling Short
• The Division: A Guide to Surviving the Dark Zone Solo