Radioactive Dwarfs: Evil From the Sewers Review

Radioactive Dwarfs: Evil From the Sewers tells the story of mutated dwarfs that kidnap, kill and eat people. Our nameless heroine has decided that enough was enough and that she’d take the matter into her own hands and launch a solo attack against the dwarves into their own territory, the sewers, in order to stop their murdering spree and save her brother.

Radioactive Dwarfs: Evil From the Sewers is a top-down shooter akin to Smash TV or Zombie ate my Neighbors. Our protagonist, who can only move in 4 directions, will need to use her pistol to kill dwarves that get her in way but can also be used to break wooden boxes and small patches of bricks. There’s also hazardous obstacles that you can’t do anything about such as radioactive puddle.

As you’ll roam around the various areas, boxes will unveil either coins for points, a key to open the path to the next area, useful items such as grenades or health refill or even hidden dwarves. Once you’ve killed a set number of dwarves and reach a point in the level, additional enemies will spawn out of thin air. Grenades will clear enemies in a 4×4 pattern around our heroine. There are also explosive barrel that will kill any nearby enemies. But if you’re too close, you’ll suffer damage too.

The game’s presentation is spot-on. It’s clearly a love letter to B-movies in gaming form. This game would’ve been perfect at home on the NES or even the SEGA Master System. Given the limited visuals, each of the 20 levels has its unique design and progressively increasing challenge. The soundtrack is appropriately fitting as is it creepy and ominous to match the horror theme; although it’s not as hair raising as the soundtracks from LJN’s Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street games.

There’s a few nuisance keeping this game from retro goodness. The first being the spawning of enemies; sometimes they can spawn on top of you or very close to the protagonist to the point you don’t have enough time to react resulting unnecessary damage or death. The controls feel stiff; and being unable to freely in all 8 directions restricts your movements. So if you don’t destroy every destructible obstacle, you need to place the character pixel perfect between both obstacles to pass through, but sometimes you need to react quickly to avoid damage. So if not pixel perfect, you’ll again suffer unnecessary damage or death.

There’s also an annoying collision issue where the characters’ hit box is the same size as the grid’s square/surface. This means if you’re too close to an enemy, you’ll suffer damage (or death as some stronger enemies are one hit kill); also if you break a wooden box too close and there’s a dwarf, BAM! More damage or another another death. This is incredibly annoying and requires a lot of repetition to learn which crate you can or cannot break.

On paper, Radioactive Dwarfs: Evil From the Sewers is a great old-school concept that’s appealing. Unfortunately, the execution falls short of expectations. The stiff controls (NES games don’t feel as stiff) and annoying collision makes for a frustrating and repetitive experience. The theme and premise are fun as there isn’t enough pixelated horror theme game, but ultimately this is a bit disappointing. If you’re a fan of horror themes, this is an interesting pick up, just play it in short bursts to avoid accumulating frustration.