Do you know what’s great? Cooperative games. The types of games that bring people together to complete wholesome and fun objectives. But some of these games take it a step further, by introducing a great deal of stress, panic, and frustration, to the point that these games can test and potentially destroy even the greatest friendships and relationships. Amazing stuff! Games like Overcooked and Moving Out are fun games, but games that require teamwork and patience. Rescue Party Live joins in the genre, with a neat spin on the formula.
Is Rescue Party Live a fun, firefighting co-op experience? Or will it simply burn all the bridges?
What is Rescue Party Live?
Rescue Party Live is the latest in the line-up of highly energetic and highly stressful cooperative games where players must work together to complete objectives and where teamwork is the key to success. From Tag Studios, the guys who brought you Pocket Mortys and Prison Architect Mobile, Rescue Part Live throws players into the role of firefighters/rescue services to deal with catastrophic events such as earthquakes, fires, floods, avalanches, and biological hazards. The main goal is to save as many people as possible from these horrible events and deal with the mounting pressuring and raising tension as the game progresses. Players will need to coordinate, plan quickly and react efficiently as a team to resolve these ongoing emergencies and save the day.
Man, this is one unfortunate city with so many catastrophes happening!
Basically, imagine Overcooked, but instead of cooking and preparing food, you must save people (and sheep) from danger as quickly as possible. Work along with your team to analyze the situation, gather any useful intel, coordinate with your team and carry out your assigned tasks, whether it’s giving CPR, removing obstacles, making useful items, or laying out ladders to cross dangerous gaps.
There is a neat line-up of characters to choose from, including Firefighter, Doctor, volunteer, guide dog (good inclusion), and many more within 6 different locations and events to play in. So what we have is a pretty solid foundation for an epic and stressful cooperative game.
Visuals and presentation
Now Rescue Party Live is a game that gameplay-wise takes a lot of notes from Overcook, it also looks pretty much like the competition. While I understand these games are family-friendly and don’t aim to be gritty, realistic downers. I do wish that these types of games would try a different style. Moving Out, Overcooked and now this title could lead people to be mistaken that they were all developed by the same studio, despite being made by different ones.
Not to say the game doesn’t look nice, it does look incredibly colourful, varied, and creative with the horrific subject matter at hand (a disaster is still a disaster, even in a loveable, cartoony world). But rather it just stands with the competition rather than standing out.
But, it still looks nice and fits the family-friendly cooperative genre. Maybe for those looking to do the same, create a new art style.
Gameplay
To add a little more context, Rescue Party Live is a cooperative, team-based game where players will need to rescue those in need during a catastrophic event. 4 Players will enter the situation, assess, and work together to save the day.
The environments are usually pretty large in scale but often broken up into multiple sections, which can be reached by placing ladders or removing obstacles blocking the path forward. Players can carry one item, whether it be a ladder, shovel, or even someone to rescue (or a sheep), and must work together to move proceeding and the rescue on smoothly. Players are working against the clock as the longer you hang about in a level, the worst the disaster gets. You’ll be notified of the disaster with live reports at the bottom of the screen, and with at times floating text representing social media buzz that crosses the screen (A neat idea, but I personally found this to be a little off-putting).
The core loop consists of working together, removing obstacles, rescuing people, and doing so as quickly as possible. So you could be called out to a remote area made of small islands with serve flooding. Use ladders to gain access to each of the islands, gather supplies such as water and bandages to heal the injured, remove blockages to make safe paths to the exit point, and do so while avoiding the oncoming disaster.
What I likedRescue Party Live is simple, yet incredibly engaging when it comes to teamwork gameplay. While there aren’t really any classes or roles to take on, each player will be vital in the success of the mission. Communication is key and pointing out where a ladder is or supplies to heal any injured NPCs, are a great mechanic and generally endearing gameplay. Everyone really has to work together and see how players can come together, feel value in even the smallest actions and bring the best results possible offers an amazing sense of accomplishment.
I find many of the AAA shooters, more recently Back4Blood just now miss the point and haven’t evolved with the times since that of Left for Dead. While it does resemble that of Overcooked, Rescue Party Live does offer some new things to the table. The mounting pressure, limited access, and resources, and multiple tasks to complete under a time limit really can stress you out but can also feel like an incredible challenge. Pushing teamwork and communication factors above other titles in the genre.
The pacing is excellent, the environments are really cool, the sense of dread, tension, and a stimulating feeling of accomplishment when a mission is complete really do make Rescue Party Live a highly rewarding co-op venture. The developers have done a good job at making the missions varied, with plenty of interesting hazards and dynamics that each one feels unique and different from the last. You will be dealing with the same types of events such as flooding and fires, but doing so in some cool environments, with their own hazards and obstacles. Whether it's dealing with a flooded city street, a warehouse on fire, or a resort that’s being covered in snow. They all each have their own induvial factors to make them stand out while being continuously surprising and fun.
What Rescue Party Live could do better
While there was nothing major to spoil the experience, there were quite a few small things that kept Rescue Party Live from being amazing!
Firstly, as mentioned, the visuals are nice but, unlike the gameplay, don’t stand out against the competition. The music is rather lame and doesn’t even reflect the progression of the level. Meaning, I didn’t notice any diegetic changes to reflect the rising tension. Some of the small visual cues, such as the scrolling text are easily forgettable or just come across as a little annoying.
The story is very basic, and that’s a shame. As a better story to interlink, these events (while not needed) could have pushed Rescue Party Live above its competition possibly. But I did feel there was a lack of extras or unlockable content (aside from some characters you can buy) which is a shame.
But mainly the main issue really came from some poor controls and mapping issues with a controller. I personally found the main controls on the mouse and keyboard to be tolerable, despite the fact you can’t change them in the settings menu (you can’t even view the controls at all), but I had quite a few technical issues plugging in a controller.
Sadly, this appears to be another game (second review this month), where controller support is poorly optimised and even the basic requirements for mapping commands or viewing basic controls are missing. Very odd. But hopefully, this can change.
Overall?While it may not be entirely original and could look like a tie-in with Overcooked, Rescue Party Live is still an exhilarating and fun time to have with some friends. Despite some technical issues with controls and the uninspired approach to visuals/sound design, Rescue Party Live is quite a thrilling experience, filled with danger, suspense, sheep, and great teamwork gameplay. With its pretty sensible price, you and your friends should pick it up and try it out for a night of fun and excitement.
++ Nice concept, with plenty of danger and suspense
+ Fun cooperative gameplay and strong teamwork elements
+ Varied level design and events
- Visually a little uninspired and dull soundtrack
- Annoying controller support and total lack of mapping
A Steam review key of Rescue Party Live was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review
