Doomsday Parade is an arcade game exclusively available in the Windows Phone Store where you guide a giant monster across ten levels of play, destroying everything in sight.
The Windows Phone game reminds me a little of the classic arcade game Rampage but with a side-scrolling path of destruction. Doomsday Parade has three mini-games to keep things interesting and plenty of units determined to stop your monster.
In playing Doomsday Parade over the past few days, it comes across as a decent time waster of a game. It isn't very complicated to pick up, but challenging to keep your monster going as humanity's defenses increase.
Doomsday Parade's primary menu is simply laid out with options to play the game, access the game's settings, view the gaming credits and choose your language support. Settings are limited to muting the sound.
Again, game play is spread out across ten levels that are progressively unlocked. You can access a tutorial series from the level screen, which does a good job of laying out the basics of game play. The tutorial has eight total screens to review and to navigate between them, you will find red directional arrows in the upper right corner of the display. They are a little catawampus and may not stand out as navigational arrows.
The game screen for Doomsday Parade has your life bar displayed in the upper right corner and your score is displayed in the top center of the screen. Your monster marches left to right with his attack controls lining the bottom of the screen.
The left button controls your monster's jump and the right button controls his fire breath. While all this sounds straightforward, there is a slight twist to both controls. You press the jump button to send your monster into the air and a second time to bring him crashing to the earth. If you only press the button once, the monster will act as if he is flying and will eventually come back to earth. This adds a timing challenge to the game.
Tapping the right button will cause your monster to spit a fireball at objects in its path. Tapping and holding the right button will cause your monster to release a huge laser strike (much like Godzilla) that creates a larger path of destruction.
If you press both buttons at the same time, a shield will be generated to momentarily protect your monster. Each action does have duration limits and icons line the bottom of the gaming screen to show you what is available (on either side of the pause button).
The goal of each level is to make it to the exit point, destroying as much as possible along the way and minimizing the damage you take. Keep in mind that while your monster can simply walk over things, in doing so it will take on damage. You will also be fired upon by some vehicles and have to use your shield or jump up to avoid the incoming shots.
The only nit I can find with the game is that you cannot multi-task. For example, your monster cannot launch a fireball while jumping. It would help give you a fighting chance of survival if you could multi-task. It does offer an element of strategy to the game, but it just seems wrong to have a monster who cannot breathe fire while in mid-air.
Graphics are decent and game play is challenging. While each attack can be rather destructful, Doomsday Parade does a nice job mixing things up where it will take a mixture of fireballs, lasers, shields and stomping on things to be successful. Overall, Doomsday Parade is a fun time waster of a Windows Phone game. It is an exclusive to the Windows Phone Store and a nice addition to the Rampage styled games.
The trial version of Doomsday Parade gives you full access to the first two levels of the game. The full version will run you $3.75.
Download Doomsday Parade from the Windows Phone Store
