A Victory for Bootant – Victory March Review

Having played through Victory March to completion on both platforms, I think that some impressions are in order. What needs to be said first, though, are a few words about the developer, Bootant. Bootant have been on the app store, almost since it's inception and have since released a slew of titles. With their previous release, Victory Day, I really feel like they hit their stride, as a company. The artwork, characters, and gameplay meshed perfectly to form a title that stood out among it's brethren. Now, with the release of Victory March, Bootant has proven that they can extend a valuable intellectual property in new directions to increase the lifetime of said IP and to generate revenue, but without sacrificing their vision. Their newest title does just that. Victory March fits squarely in the Runner genre, closer to Monster Dash than to Canabalt. You work your way through a series of six levels, at a pace dictated by the speed of the scroll. Tap buttons on screen-left to jump, screen-right to fire, and another to fire grenades, when equipped. It all seems fairly standard, but where it really shines is in the characters, theme, and sense of humor. There is more Nazi killin', per square inch, in this game than any other genre mate. Not only are there Nazi stormtroopers, but also Nazi Darth Vaders, Nazi zombies, Nazi vampires, and Nazi...ahem...female dogs. You do this with an arsenal of machine guns, rocket launchers, and flamethrowers...oh and tanks. That's right, what other Runner lets you command a Russian tank with twin-linked auto-cannons? You can play through the game as either a Russian or American soldier and, if you are an achievement hound, you get duplicate achievements with each of those playthroughs, doubled again if you own both platforms. The achievements themselves are of the "obtain weapon x" and "travel x meters" variety, so I think there is room for the developers to inject some life into repeated plays, if they take a cue from the Monster Dash playbook; x meters without shooting, squash 3 heads (which, of course, should be called, "Death from Above"), etc. Is the game ground-breaking in it's innovation? Does it provide 50 hours of gameplay? Is it my all-time favorite, pretty please with sugar on top, can I have it game...? No, no, and no, but the history of the app store has proven that it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be fun and it is. It is also the next step in Bootant's evolution and I think it is a step in the right direction.
Review by Djflippy on Victory March.