Double Action Boogaloo

 

 

John Woo. John freaking Woo. Even his last name is a celebration within itself. Cast your mind back, if you will, to a time before the Wachowski’s made the film about slow motion gun fights between men who never changed their facial expression. Action junkies were already getting their fix off of John Woo films. These often poorly-acted flicks always had several things in common, which later became Woo’s tropes. One- Dual wielding pistols. These would be used all the time, by protagonists and antagonists alike. Even though automatic weapons were available, you look undeniably cooler firing with twin Beretta’s than one sub-machine gun. Two, sliding and diving. I’m almost certain everyone in John Woo’s films lather themselves in oil before leaving their houses. That or the friction is abnormally low, because everyone is always sliding. Sliding along the floor. Sliding on any surface available. Even sliding down the stairs. Have you tried sliding down stairs? I have, and without a duvet or mattress to protect you, you’re lucky to slide down the first two steps, before tumbling head first into the shoe cabinet. And as for diving, you’ll get two, maybe three good dives before you injure your ribs, or carpet burn your arms, or something that’ll convince you not to dive again. Three- Doves. To this day, I still have no idea why he chose doves. They look cool when they fly across heated gunfights, I guess. Other than that, its lunacy. And finally, and most importantly, slow motion. Simply slowing down the action suddenly makes all the above more vivid, important and epic. They all complement each other during some truly awesome scenes. Dual wielding looks incredible, especially while diving or sliding towards or away from the opponent. As he does so, some doves slowly and majestically beat their wings, as the opponent’s chest gets riddled with bullets. Bliss.

Anyway, what would you get if you mixed all the awesome parts of John Woo films, without any of the sub-par acting? An awesome mod with the most bizarre name I’ve ever heard- Double Action Boogaloo. This mod requires Half Life 2 to play. It’s a deathmatch/free-for-all flipping diving sliding mash-up. And it’s amazing.

The first map I personally played was called Rooftops. This, imaginatively, took place on the rooftops of some very, very tall buildings. You and your opponents battle it out to see who can get the most “style points”, which is not a fancy name for kills. This has got to be the first multiplayer shooter that doesn’t have the focus on the number of kills, rather the way in which you kill them. Apart from maybe Bulletstorm. But Bulletstorm is a special case. Shooting someone in the back with a shotgun? You’ll get the kill, but that’s not fun, is it? No, something much more awesome is activating slow motion, diving and aiming for your opponent’s head. From across the map. That way, you’ll get a diving, long-shot and headshot bonus. Now, that is stylish!

So I continue my romp across the rooftops, when I’m targeted by a player diving at relatively close range with a sub-machine gun. Instinctively, I dive backwards to give myself some ground. Unfortunately, ground is the last thing I found when I realised I flung myself off the roof into open air. Luckily for me, the scummy player who shot me followed me down, intent on finishing the job. And here I was reminded of the scene from Matrix Revelations, when Trinity and Agent Smith are falling from the skyscraper, shooting each other at point blank range and somehow missing. Our aim wasn’t much better. Other players in the game activated slow motion every so often, which allowed us to get stray shots on each other. But we weren’t that good, so we both became smears on the floor. See, if that was to ever happen in Call of Duty, it would have either been a quick time event or a cut scene or one of those scripted events when you must follow a certain structure or be reset to try again. In Double Action Boogaloo, a game doesn’t pass without this happening.

You have a selection of characters, each looking like characters from the original Max Payne. Hell, one of them literally looks like him. The other is Nick from Left 4 Dead 2. So there’s that, I suppose. You have a selection of abilities to choose from which you can activate once you’ve filled your style bar. As you activate your ability, pigeons fly from behind you. Yes, pigeons. I was expecting doves, but this is somehow funnier, and I’m happy they chose that instead. There are dumb ones like damage reduction, better aiming and stupid stuff like that. But there’s one that always has to be used. Extreme slow motion. This lets you use slow motion for 3-5 seconds, depending on how well you filled the bar and how much slow motion you had prior. Everyone in the game loves whoever activates this, as all their little skirmishes become drawn out. This in turn allows everyone to think more strategically about their next moves, where they think the opponent is going to go, when to reload and so on. In fact, reloading is something that’ll get you killed more often than not. You have unlimited ammo, but a limited clip. When you’re busy slow motion diving at someone, you’ll often forget that you wasted half your clip just spraying. You’ll slide to the feet of the enemy, clicking your pistols fruitlessly as he delivers the “Old Yeller” shotgun blast to the face. As for weapons ,you have the essential pistols, which can be dual wielded if you wanted to feel like a god. You have sub-machine guns, a shotgun and a rifle, though if you choose any of these you’re kind of missing the point of the game. You also have your fists, which are incredibly overpowered and effective like every melee weapon in any competitive shooter ever. How a fist beats a bullet, I’ll never know.

Double Action Boogaloo offers a lot in terms of fun. It doesn’t have many maps, play modes, characters or weapons. But I’ll say this is one of the most fun multiplayer mods for a game, not counting the ones that take themselves seriously, like CounterStrike. If John Woo saw this, he would shed a tear. A slow motion tear, probably in pain as earlier he tried to slide downa flight of stairs.