Trash - A Review
by ChainGangGuy
When I was younger, I’d wander past an open dumpster and look longingly at the heaps of rotting garbage, empty soda cans, banana peels, coffee grounds, and piles of soggy newspapers held within, and I just knew there was a huge world of fun sitting right there. Inhuman Games brings that trash to wonderful life, giving us an entertaining, brutally fast-paced RTS that will surely please fans of the genre as well as of trash in general.
Trash focuses on two distinct races: The Humans, and the Mutants. Absolutely no explanation is given at all for the extreme amounts of hatred and anger between these guys, but it seems that they just can’t share a planet full of luscious trash without getting into a fight. Honestly, though folks, it really doesn’t matter. Mark Currie isn’t trying to tell a grand, epic tale here. Trash is about putting a few units with a few updates on a map and seeing who walks off alive, little more than that. Those looking for “plot” in amongst the trash and garbage need to look elsewhere. The rest of us can enjoy some highly-polished-for-an-independent-release RTS action.
Fuck it, you know the RTS drill by now. Players begin with a main base structure and several builder units. First order of business is race to collect some damn trash. There are only two resources for each of the two races. Trash, the primary resource, is gained mainly through scrounging up every last bit of rubbish. There's only so much trash to go around, so choose your units wisely. Gas, the secondary resource for Humans, is gathered simply by building Gas Pumps over gas sites. Mutants need to accumulate a secondary resource which is, amusingly enough, humans. Humans (the resource) are gathered by commanding your thralls to greedily steal human babies and children from the Lincoln Log huts scattered throughout the map.
Each race sports combinations of light and heavy, ranged, melee, and flying units. The Humans sport the basic, jack-of-all-trades units, decent at combating just about any enemy unit, but not spectacular at any one job, especially since recent patch upgrades have greatly favored and enhanced the mutant race. Mutant units can take and dish out quite a bit of punishment, IMO certainly more than the humans, are easier to upgrade, and are easier to produce, letting them use the advantage of force of numbers to swarm and rush the battlefield. The basic mutant units can be teamed up with a few specialized upgrade units (i.e., Extender and Amplicon), allowing them greater range and increased damage to better face their opponents. Plus, the mutants have a much more sinister feel to them. Any race which employs the help of fucking walking [b]Jack-O-Lanterns[/b] is going to be sinister. Oh yeah, and the mutants are able to teleport about the map allowing for excellent hit-and-run tactics. Thankfully, the Humans have the Super Gun, a massively destructive weapon whi/SG offch hurls flaming balls of trash towa/SG offrds the en/SG offe/SG offmy.
/SG off /SG off /SG off /SG off /SG off /SG off!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and usually, the Super Gun is disabled and banned from most multiplayer games, further castrating the human race, so GO GO MUTANTS!
Winning a game involves destroying all enemy structures. Given that defensive structures are not terribly effective, Trash is a game of speed and offense. Players (like me) who typically employ “turtling” tactics will find they have to change their ways, as this game is not kind at all for the defensive-style players. While actual rushing never seemed to work for me, I found that a constant and steady offensive push is needed to repeatedly succeed.
Ultimately, Trash does a wonderful job bringing the stinky, maggot-infested world of trash to life. While the single-player offering is lacking, the high-paced multiplayer mode makes up for that deficiency. Trash is the next-best-thing for those of us without the time or emotional will to maintain and establish friends and healthy relationships. I think it's the 86th best game of all time.
About the author: ChainGangGuy, an excellent game reviewer, is also an equally impressive actor.
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