Maniac

With Grand Theft Auto VI a full year away, you might be looking for a fun, open-world action game that evokes the spirit of those classic Rockstar releases. If you’re one of those people who can’t wait to go back to Vice City, then let me introduce you to the new game Maniac, an overhead (and over-the-top) dodge ‘em up where you cause major havoc, create massive explosions and pick up heaps of cash, all while running from the cops, the feds and even the army’s most powerful jet fighters. If you loved causing chaos in Grand Theft Auto, then this is the game for you. This is my review of Maniac by Transhuman Design.

The elevator pitch for this game is surprisingly simple – Maniac is Grand Theft Auto meets Vampire Survivors. That is to say, it’s a new action game that combines the fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat open-world chaos of GTA with the dodge-everything excitement of Vampire Survivors. It distills the essence and freedom you feel while playing one of Rockstar’s massive games and turns it into a twenty-minute-long arcade experience that you’ll want to play over and over and over again.

In case you aren’t familiar with Vampire Survivors and the dodge ‘em up genre, then here’s what you need to know. Instead of controlling like a standard shooter (where you aim your gun and fire at the hordes of bad guys rushing at our hero), the trick with these games is that you aren’t directly aiming the gun. This isn’t a dual-stick shooter, no matter how much it looks like a dual-stick shooter. Maniac does make an important compromise to this concept insofar as it has you pulling the trigger, but the computer and wide-variety of guns are in control of who you target. As a result, the action is based more on your dodging than shooting.

The central conceit here is that our rampaging character is stuck in a large and wonderfully-detailed open-world sandbox. Viewed entirely from an overhead perspective, Maniac looks like an upgraded version of the original Grand Theft Auto from 1997. You can steal cars, drop bombs, blow up taxis, punch innocent bystanders and pretty much shoot anything that moves downtown, in the suburbs, through the mountains and even in the city’s bustling parks and international districts. It’s the kind of game where you can get into high-speed chases that end at the airport or find yourself in massive shoot-outs at the military base. It may not be the size of San Andreas or Liberty City, but it has all of the locations you could want.

The trick is that you only have twenty-minutes to cause as much chaos as you can and pick up that sweet, sweet cash. Once time is over, our so-called “hero” will make a hasty escape as the city gets nuked into oblivion. Of course, surviving for twenty minutes is a lot easier said than done. No matter if you choose the drunk Santa, the little girl, the homicidal clown or even the hotdog, each of the crazy characters will start out weak and easily killed. What you’ll want to do is use that money you collect from each mission to upgrade every aspect of the character, including buying more armor, strengthening your attack, speeding up your carjacking, overpowering the vehicles, improving the speed of your guns, adding special abilities and a whole lot more.

It's worth mentioning that the upgrades and money do not carry over to the different characters. In fact, when you start the game, all but one is locked away, demanding that you target certain types of cars and civilians. For example, you’ll need to destroy a whole bunch of hod dog stands if you want to dress up like the hot dog man. You’ll also earn the broker by going after the taxi cabs that line the streets or unlock the astronaut if you target mafia types. This sounds simple enough, but you’re going to need to spend a lot of in-game money in order to even stand a chance chasing down these targets. That said, it does give you a fun side-quest to take on, even if you never intend to play the game as a little girl or hot dog.

While each of the different characters have their own pros and cons, as well as weapons and special attacks, the over-the-top action may grow stale before you decided to max out everybody. Like a lot of games in this genre, the grind can feel a bit samey after a while, even with all of the options and locations afforded to you in an open-world sandbox. This is the kind of game you’ll want to pick at over a long period of time, because I got serious burn-out after using my typical binge approach. While I’m not eager to spend the time to level up a new character right now, I know that I will be in a few days or weeks. And that’s when I’ll remember that I have a whole new character to play around with, leading to me getting hooked all over again.

One thing that I absolutely love is how insane this game gets. The game will suggest that you can only upgrade your weapons and abilities a handful of times, but you can just keep going to a ludicrous level, assuming you have enough money. It gets to the point where you’re creating these massive multi-car explosions from a single shotgun blast. The whole thing reminded me a lot of the insanity of Burnout’s crash mode, where the chain reaction will just keep getting bigger and bigger until it resembles the ending of The Blues Brothers. That’s not how this game starts out, so you’ll end up going from a mere mortal with limited life to a straight-up superhero that can shoot down jets and helicopters with a single shot. I love that when you think the character is overpowered, you’re just scratching the surface. You can become practically unstoppable by the time you’re done playing.

And that’s ultimately the appeal of a game like Maniac. There’s enough challenge for those who want to take the action seriously, yet enough chaos for anybody who just wants to see the open-world burn. While it can get a little repetitive at times and part of me wishes that I could just aim my own damn guns, there’s no question that this game is worth the five-dollar asking price. It’s a good-looking dodge ‘em up that runs smoothly and throws you in the middle of a fun city that is just begging to be blown up by a bunch of psychos. Maniac is a bloody good time.