GAMES REVIEW – Wild Grinders: Industry Escape

Duuuuuuuude. Back in the day I was the raddest of skateboarders. I can go a whole 1-2 centimeters off the ground before falling on my face. Good times. But I guess that whole context just goes to show the skateboarding culture has always intrigued me but with age my love of the culture has lessened and I focused on other important things. Like sitting in front of the TV becoming a couch potato. However with Wild Grinders I have the chance to finally jump back into that culture because Industry escape is good enough to get me at least interested in the show itself.

I’m getting ahead of myself though, what’s the contextual story and controls for Industry Escape? Well that rascally Lil Rob has gotten himself stuck on top of the tallest building in the world thanks to a mishap with his jetpack. What? Doesn’t every skateboarder have a jetpack? Now Lil Rob, and if you grind and earn enough tacos, Jay Jay and Flipz, must avoid the laser security system and the guards to make it to the bottom of the building. What level the bottom is on is anyone’s guess but the game is another impossible game so that answer is unlikely to be revealed. To control Lil Rob you have the choice between the arrow keys and WASD for moving and SPACE, W, and Up on the arrow key for jump. The movement is natural and allows personal preference which is a major plus in my books, and with the additional of the various power ups it leads to many minutes of pulse pounding gameplay.

There’s also a cool quasi-bullet time mechanic where when your character comes dangerously close to the laser time will slow down. This turned out to be the designers’ crowning achievement of good ideas as if this mechanic were not in the game, what would happen? You would find yourself completely trapped in parts of the levels, between the floor and the laser, and you would die and die seemingly unfairly to the point where you would quit the game. Adding the bullet time allows for breathing room in those close scrapes, it isn’t a mechanic that makes the game super easy. Hell no. It’s just a defense for early screw-ups, a game mechanic training wheel, to put it in a more metaphorical view.

Other than actually reaching the bottom, your other goals in the game are collecting tacos and getting a high score. To score points you can jump over enemies (don’t jump ON them, you will get hurt), drop +3 floors down each hole without touching the floor, and grinding. However earning points from jumping over enemies and grinding are so small (10 points each) that the reward isn’t worth the effort. Dropping down multiple levels actually takes quick reflexes, luck and its reward (300 for 3 floors, and an extra hundred for each consecutive floor) is actually meaningful which incentivizes players to try and accomplish this. It did for me at least.

But the worst insult when it comes to effort/reward is your choice of characters. When you start the game you can only choose Lil Rob and he controls perfectly but if you want a new character you must collect 250 tacos. This isn’t an easy task, as on average you will need 10 successful runs where you collect +20 tacos to get enough for a character. Your reward for the hard work? Just a skin swapped character. There is nothing different, no additional reward just a change of skin. Now some might ask, what’s the big deal then? It’s a change of skin, what’s so bad about that? My issue is why did I have to spend 10 rounds of the game EARNING what in any other game would have just been free on a character select screen?

But those are just aesthetic nit picks in my books and the game as a whole is still plenty of fun regardless of this wonky reward/score system. The controls are fluent and natural enough for anyone to play but for me did it interest me enough to watch the show? Not really. Having not heard much about the show from my Canadian end of the Internet, this game was one of my first introductions to the property and with names like Lil Rob, Jay Jay and Flipz incorporating the game it just makes me roll my eyes. But who knows? Maybe once I give the show a chance it will blow my socks off, but the game at least shows that the show can be imaginative and a lot of fun.