Charles Warner once said that “simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough”, something that Undercutter Softworks’ (who kindly provided us with a copy of the game) take to heart with their game: Bailout! As the name suggests the game is centred around the most recent economic collapse, and as the description states: “When the rich get poor they get a Bailout!”.

You play a man who has to do his best to try and catch all the falling notes, coins and gold bars, while at the same time avoiding suicidal stockbrokers. You’ve also got to contend with thieving hobos which you can kick to protect your precious loot. You move your character left and right to catch the falling money and once you’ve filled your wallet, you deposit your money and keep catching. The game is made up of various stages of 30 seconds, after which you are presented with a menu where you can buy certain upgrades such as more speed or a shield.

The graphics are refreshingly simple, with Atari 2600-style style looks. You can’t really hate the game having simple graphics, but it does beg the question: how much better would the game be if it looked prettier?

Watch out: Falling Stockbrokers.

As soon as you start the game you realise it has basically no depth, once you play it for a while, doing the same thing every level gets pretty dull. The gameplay consists of around three to four elements: catch the money, dodge the stockbrokers and kill the hobos. Once you’ve played the game for anything over 30 minutes, you’ll soon get bored. The game features a shop system as mentioned, but with only four things to buy it’s not enough to keep you interested.

The game also suffers the problem of frustration. If you do manage to play the game for some amount of time, but then while on level 15 get nicked by a stockbroker forcing you to start all over again, it gets damn annoying. The game doesn’t have much depth as mentioned, so creating infuriating, no checkpoint gameplay will cause you to simply not play the game. Even if it was every five levels or so, the game needs some sort of short term goal in order to make it fun in the long term.

This problem is often defeated by simply not playing the game for long enough, which seems to be the developer’s intention. The game’s lack of narrative is something that I feel could of corrected the problem of longevity. You get hints at the satirical message here and there, (“The homeless want your money for medical care – kick them with B”) but the game never really grabs you. They could of created a title that has an interesting narrative to plug the holes in the gameplay and while I’m not asking for a rollercoaster story-ride, it could do with some sort of progression to keep the game ticking over.

A few other points worth mentioning:

• The game has leaderboards but doesn’t seem to utilise them. All I can see if my Gamertag along with my progressively increasing score. Some sort of online leaderboard would’ve been nice.
• The eight-bit ragtime music got a little annoying for me, but that’s what volume is for.

Bailout! could be much more if there had been more investment in the game’s narrative. Point and click adventure game style satire would fit perfectly with this game and given it just enough to keep that ethos of simplicity while making a game you can play for more then half an hour.

It isn’t a bad game, but sadly there’s just nothing to it. The game’s simple elements are stretched out across an idea that with a little more story could be an entertaining game in the long run. But it’s not, it’s a fun-while-it-lasts title that will entertain you for the short amount of time you play it.

You should play this game if…

…you want to use up your last 80MS points on a fairly fun game.

Final Score

A fun, if not short Indie Game that offers simple gameplay but is held back by a lack of narrative.

(What does this score mean?)