Steam Challenge: Super Amazing Wagon Adventure (Turbo)

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Aywren

-Welcome to this series where I resolve to play my Steam games backlog! Here are my discoveries!-

Game: Super Amazing Wagon Adventure
Time Played: 1.1 hours

I picked this up as an impulse buy during the Steam Summer Sale 2014. It was only $1.01 when I bought it, so with the Steam currency in my account, it was practically free. It had a lot of good reviews, and I had an idea of what I was getting into when I picked it up.

What Is It?

Super Amazing Wagon Adventure (SAWA) is a retro style shooter/adventure game that parodies old skool games, such as Oregon Trail. To be honest, it’s nothing like Oregon Trail. But since you come into the game with that expectation, you’re instantly smacked in the face by the humor that keeps you coming back for more brutal deaths.

You know how when your best friend dies of dysentery in Oregon Trail, it’s more funny than sad? Well this game hits on that and takes it up… many, many notches. It brags that each time you play the adventure mode, you’ll experience a series of random events, most so ridiculous that you have to laugh. This is more or less true, though the game follows a pattern, so it’s not truly random. It’s only when you play through the game as many times as I have (due to death) that you come to expect the same sort of events each time.

Gameplay

I like the sense of humor and the random events. I understand what the game is trying to do and I appreciate it. It’s really the gameplay, which is as unforgiving as retro arcade games, that keeps me from fully enjoying all it has to offer. Namely, because (for me), it was so difficult that I couldn’t get halfway through without dying, so I could never really experience the game without starting over and over again.

Tai picked mushrooms. Then ate one on the way back to the wagon. He then tripped out and had to battle his inner demons, which killed him.

I think this is by design. The game is made to make you laugh when you die… over and over and over again. But after about 30 mins of fighting the same random bandits, I wanted to see what was beyond the buffalo level.

I discovered the game was much easier for me when I tried to play it with a game pad. However, in scenarios when you are on foot, the targeting and shooting controls change, and are really not intuitive with the game pad. So I was practically juggling game pad and mouse/keyboard to progress through certain parts.

In the end, I resorted to looking for cheats (there are none), and learning how to use Cheat Engine to give at least one character infinite lives just so I could play through the game to the end. Seeing the difficulty of the game, I doubt I would have been able to beat it without a cheat — I guess I just suck at these kinds of games in my older age. 😀

Given this, I find myself on the fence when recommending the game to my friends. The price is right, the game is full of plenty of random silliness. I’m sure it’ll make people smile. However, if you’re not good at this kind of game, you may find yourself stuck playing the intro areas over and over again, which will quickly turn humor into annoyance.

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