Faisal Ghaffar 
Overview
Arcadegeddon is a mash-up of several genres. Rather than playing like any other game you’ve played before, it’s an amalgamation of some of the most popular mechanics, meta-games, and genres currently leading the video game world. It’s part co-op goodie, part roguelite, and part runway show treadmill, drawing inspiration from games like Destiny, Fortnite, and even Hades in subtle but distinct ways.
Arcadegeddon, like a Netflix algorithm that recommends actor and genre duos based on market research, is a bland mash-up of several games you’d prefer to play separately. It’s not that those who don’t work as a whole; it’s just that Arcadegeddon feels so focused on what came before it that it feels stale.
Game’s Setting
Because of the story’s conceit, the game’s setting changes frequently. You’re on a mission to save an indie arcade in an alien world where the characterless mega-corp FunFunCo. is threatening to shut down all mother shops. This is accomplished by moving through and fighting within arcade games a la Wreck-It Ralph. This enables you to be positioned in a breezy coastal paradise on one level, a lava-filled hellscape on the next, and a cyberpunkish tech dystopia on the following.
The level variety is adequate, and the game’s vivid colors look lovely regardless of setting, but each somewhat randomly generated setting quickly reveals its reconfigurable parts, and it doesn’t take that long before levels begin to feel overly familiar within any given setting.
Levels
The game’s strongest suit is its third-person gunplay. This is a game about having to look fast as well as cool while you and two to 3 co-op partners take enemy down by the dozens to hundreds in each level, aided by an occasionally aim assist. Each hub level will present you with a randomised objective—lock down the above area, decimate these targets, and so on. The variety and creativity of weapons, combined with the just-keep-swimming level design, harkens back to Sunset Overdrive in a way that guarantees some brainless fun for a while, at least.
When you die in the game?
A run ends when you die and have no Continues remaining—the first one is free, but after that, you must pay with a temporary deserved monetary system or return to base. Except for XP and some skill points, you don’t consider taking anything with you when you die, so even if you find the best version of your favourite weapon, you won’t be able to use it till much later, when a higher level allows you to start with different weapons. New recharge time abilities can also be added to your repertoire, and they assist in transforming your basic character into a specific build such as glass cannon, healer, and the other common playing styles.
Conclusion
Arcadegeddon may appear to be a loud and gaudy co-op shooter worth a spot in your weekend rotation for a few in-game hours, but the combination of been-there-done-that objectives, a superficial loot pool, as well as an irksome cast of characters quickly unravels what could’ve been the next superstar co-op game from a team otherwise doing well in that space. However, in certain lights, this end result simply appears to be better games. It aspires to be several things at once, but Arcadegeddon difficulties to define itself and dies by a thousand market research data points.
