R.I.P. (which apparently stands for Yet Another Top-down Shooter in Russian) is a Halloween-themed game coming from White Elephant - an indie team that's, like so many others, focused on development of casual titles. Your mission in R.I.P., should you choose to accept it, is to fight off fon (sic!) Pigman's army by controlling one of three available characters: Death, in its most common Grim Reaper guise, a pumpkin-headed incarnation of Halloween and Rock'nroll, in all its demonic glory (obviously paying an homage to the school of thought claiming that rock'n'roll is in fact the music of the devil).

After this - arguably the most important - choice, all there's left to do is to choose a game mode (story or survival - a familiar top-down shooter convention) and enter the first level. But... hey, what happened to your character? A physical representation of your protagonist is nowhere to be seen, the only reminder of what character you chose being a portrait in the GUI corner. Instead, you will find yourself controlling a stationary turret, firing at your enemies in a full circle, but being completely unable to move.

Surely it's some kind of a practice level, you might say if you've skipped the tutorial - a sort of an introduction to the aiming system while staying in the confines of a cannon turret. Or perhaps a hint of what is yet to come, the possibility of vast levels filled with multiple battle vehicles to peruse at will? But then the level ends, and you're still in a turret. And then it dawns on you that R.I.P. is nothing like its close relatives - as it is, this game differs from your typical top-down shooter by a gimmick the whole gameplay is based on. The turret is you. Though seemingly making the game much more static, and at the first glance a bit duller, this new premise does present an opportunity to add a bit of tactics and interactivity to the levels, which is exactly what the level designers did.

The levels are, for the most part, designed around the turret and - at least in the main story mode - exhibit very little randomness. The availability of different weapons - from ordinary chainguns and rocket launchers to more exotic armaments such as a lightning gun - often dictates the best strategy to use against the enemy formations. Most of the environment is destructable (some, like radioactive waste barrels, in a very explosive manner), and this can be used to control the waves of enemy soldiers. Shooting down walls to allow a portion of the army to be mowed down by your turret and at the same time being careful not to shoot other walls to avoid being overwhelmed is just one example of R.I.P.'s strategy. The AI isn't particularly smart, though, and the enemies frequently get stuck in the scenery, so that means you'll usually have to destroy half a level in order to kill that last foe and move to the next.

Parents might be somewhat glad to hear that the game offers a special kid mode. At the very beginning of the game, instead of the typical corpse-filled mayhem, you are able to choose a mode where - though the weapons stay the same - enemy remains instantly turn into flowers. Tiny daisies will splatter the ground instead of blood drops, and enemies will, upon death, sprinkle the otherwise harsh landscape of the Otherworld with wondrous colours. A truly surreal experience that's almost worthy of serving as the main game mode!

Graphics: (-)
Although colourful and cutesy (which casual game isn't nowadays?), R.I.P. lacks a certain amount of graphical charm usually found in such quirky releases, resembling a mediocre Flash game much more than, for example, a masterpiece like Earthworm Jim. A lot of effort that could've been spent on different character animations has been skimped on by making the "character" a turret, but the development time saved by this move doesn't seem to have been spent to improve other areas, leaving us - graphically - with little more than a Crimsonland clone. Since the game definitely doesn't exhibit a level of professionalism that's high enough to take it completely seriously, a bit more of over-the-top zaniness would've been a nice addition to the already silly theme. Plagued with easily identifiable problems like the horrible-looking auto-scrolling text in character ability descriptions, R.I.P. looks like it strives to be one of those games featuring a flying octopus or exploding sheep, but ultimately fails at even entering the same ballpark.

Sound: (+)
Courtesy of a semi-decent amount of attention paid to the game's hellish theme, the tunes heard in R.I.P. are more easily comparable to the Doom series' soundtrack than any of the music tracks found in a typical casual game. Combined with often-heard gruff voice clips, the music fits into the overall atmosphere of mayhem, destruction and an occasional flower. Nevertheless, removing the extremely annoying anvil pounding beat from the main menu background theme or at least toning it down would've been a great move.

Gameplay: (+)
With two firing modes mapped to left and right mouse buttons and a level-up menu accessed by clicking on your turret, all you need to play R.I.P. is an electronic rodent and decent reflexes. As you progress through the levels, you'll be rewarded with experience points enabling you to buy different enhancements, but their effect on the game is almost negligible, putting most of the responsibility for success on the player's skills. All three characters are, skill-wise, slightly different (with a common skill pool shared between the three), but largely the same in practice. Since the distinction between them amounts to as little as two skills to choose from, the gameplay ends up as being virtually identical, no matter what character you pick. A greater difference between play styles you'd have to adopt when choosing a character would have been better, even if it only meant a typical shoot'em-up speed/damage ratio distinction.

Value: (=)
With 40 unique levels and three characters to choose from, R.I.P. manages to creep up to one of the top spots amongst modern Robotron clones as far as longevity is concerned. Despite the fact that the character differences are quite subtle, the game itself is fun enough to occupy your interest as long as it's needed to play through all the content that's offered. And if you, for whatever reason, lack the motivation to complete all 40 levels, here's an interesting bit of trivia: when you beat the game with one character, you'll get a bunch of cheat codes to use in your next play through. One of them enables turret movement, giving you a chance to experience the levels from a more mobile point of view!

Concept: (-)
Shooters like this are becoming more and more common on the casual games market, as the theme is well-known, and for the most part, well-liked. In addition to that, some of the recent releases like Crimsonland have managed to add a couple of interesting and fun gameplay elements to the old concept (the character progression, for example), almost forcing the developers to adopt the newly established standards in order to compete. Much like the Arkanoid/Breakout craze, this bandwagon jumping will probably lead to an overabundance of poorly thought-out games, but will hopefully spawn a few new gems in the process. R.I.P., unfortunately, isn't one of those gems. It works quite well as a timewaster, but only slight improvements in some, combined with severe declines in other areas, hardly make it a flagship title for the genre.

Fun: (+)
The action in R.I.P. can, at times, become very intense, but it's not nearly as hard to play as, for example, Evil Invasion, shaping the game into a much more pleasant experience. It's refreshing to see a game that takes the "easy" in "easy mode" literally for a change, but that doesn't mean that R.I.P. will be too boring to more experienced players. Harder modes still pose a significant challenge and the rush (survival) mode is downright crazy compared to the regular story mode, guaranteeing a comfortable level of enjoyment to everyone, regardless of their skill level. Though not as horrendously entertaining as typical Engrish, the quirky translations shouldn't be underestimated as an alternative source of enjoyment, since most of the text is far too silly not to evoke a smile. Whatever you do, just don't take it too seriously, as it's quite obvious the developers didn't.

Overall: (Try)
An already announced sequel in the works, aptly titled "Otherworld Strike Back", promises a more run-of-the-mill pedestrian gameplay with the addition of boardable tanks and turrets, obviously intended to please fans of traditional top-down shooters. Still, R.I.P. isn't that bad by itself, even with this replacement product looming on the horizon. Aside from a few faults, it's an enjoyable action romp, but by now, a more significant - either quantitative (in terms of features) or qualitative - step forward is what's expected of the genre. With its bizarre flower mode, sometimes hilarious translations and a surprising amount of content (when compared to its competitors), R.I.P.'s only shortcoming is the ubiquitous indie game inadequacy: lack of polish. However, R.I.P. is undoubtedly fun in its simplicity, and if all else fails, you can always use it as a virtual ikebana playground.