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Retro games by small indie developers such as Rake in Grass and Elephant Games rarely get the attention that bigger companies do. Not only do they not have the money to get their games looking as great as titles such as Call of Duty 4 (graphics matter for some people), they don't have the money to spend on advertising either.

Rake in Grass are the developers of Larva Mortus and Elephant Games the developers of the RIP Trilogy. Both of the titles are published by a company called Meridian4. The games themselves are similar in the sense that they are both shooters played from a bird's eye perspective. Yet the RIP Trilogy has a more science fiction type feel to it and Larva Mortus a more old fashioned feel. This is in large part due to the enemies faced in the games and the atmosphere they create.

The RIP Trilogy:

The RIP Trilogy is comprised of three games. The first is remarkably simplistic and you cannot even move your character as he is permanently attached to a turret that's used to blow away wave after wave of enemies. The character can at least be levelled though by selecting a perk from a choice of three that are randomly presented to you after each level up. There are also three characters to play as and they do have different abilities.

RIP 2 is improved over the first game and enables you to move your character. There's also a nice portrait of your character displaying the items they gain when perks are chosen on level up. It's a nice feature they didn't need to include and the three characters from the previous one do return.

In RIP 3, the biggest change comes from the fact that there're six playable characters instead of three. The original three are still present and another big change is the fact that there's a unique skill tree for each character to progress down rather than making you choose from three random perks each level up. Sadly, the portraits on level up are gone though.

The game itself has levels that take place on one screen and terrain can be destroyed. There are also boss encounters to fight and a lot of levels.

Larva Mortus:

You don't get a choice as to who you play as in Larva Mortus. You're always a hunter styled after Van Helsing and you cannot customise his appearance. Instead of being played on one screen, you move from room to room despatching enemies and each quest/level is randomly generated. With the exception of crates etc. being smashed for power-ups, the environment cannot be destroyed either.

The levelling system is also different. Upon despatching enough enemies, you level up like in the RIP Trilogy but instead of progressing down a skill tree or choosing random perks, you just assign points to various statistics such as health regeneration.

The one advantage the game has over the RIP Trilogy, despite its short length story-wise, is the fact that the game can go on forever if you choose thanks to being able to take on an infinite number of randomly generated quests. There's also no level or statistic cap though the levels do take ages to grind out after the level twenty to thirty mark.

Mainly, it depends on what you want from a game and whether you'll dig the supernatural and old fashioned elements of Larva Mortus rather than the science fiction like setting of the RIP Trilogy. For sheer gameplay enjoyment though, I'd have to give the edge to the RIP Trilogy because it's fun killing wave after wave of enemies.

Learn more about this author, Dan Cartwright.
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