Drill Dozer

Just finished playing the main quest of Drill Dozer. It's an action adventure game featuring a girl name Jill riding her Drill Dozer. The Drill Dozer itself has the ability to drill through walls by holding down the L and R buttons and has three gears allowing you to power up the Drill Dozer's drilling speed although you always have to start from gear one and locate the other gears within the level.

Naturally fighting enemies requires you to drill them until they explode or in the case of certain bosses, drilling through them. You can also use the Drill Dozer in other ways such as turning keys, drilling through tunnels and using the drill to hook onto moving silver drums. There is also a built in rumble pack turning your GBA into a force feedback device.

Overall it is a pretty fun game and I would certainly recommend it however there are a few issues I found with the game personally. The main game itself is relatively short and generally the level design lends itself quite well to the drilling although at times this can make certain action sequences more aggravating than you would normal expect as the game has an over reliance on the drilling to do everything in an attempt to make the game unique.

For example, every now and then, you will be required use special cubes to "drill jump" across dangerous areas. This involves Holding the L or R button to drill, and then pushing the opposite drill button to be reverse boosted across. The higher the gear you are in, the further you are boosted. As you can imagine this can get very aggravating as you have to remember to keep shift gears at the right time and then reverse drill to push off before your drilling finishes.

So to boost jump to the right, I have to hold down the drill button, wait for the drill reach the end, push the same drill button to shift into a higher gear and then push the opposite drill button to boost off. To the game's credit, most levels are fairly forgiving and you just have to try again but in some areas you're also under attack or the platform you land on isn't stable and it can get more annoying than fun. This issue is demonstrated in the secret levels which you can unlock by spending money at the shop where sometimes you have to repeat the process four or five times before reaching a rest area and occasionally my hands get all tangled up trying to remember which button to press.

There are also some underwater and air sequences and again because of it's over reliance the idea of drilling, it tends to get more annoying than fun at times as you have to use your drilling action to propel you through the water or air. The level design underwater isn't too bad but I feel the air levels are more frustrating than necessary particularly as getting hit can send you back down to the bottom again.

Sound and music is average. Music is shockingly repetitive and it seems like there are only a handful of tracks. I know this isn't an RPG but considering this is from Game Freak, the company that is responsible for Pokemon you think they would have at least created several other tracks.

I would say this is an above average game that will certainly keep you entertained. Just don't expect anything particularly too revolution once you get pass the third area. I'm surprised that most reviewers gave it 80%. I would say it probably hovers around the 70% mark.

Unfortunately sales weren't that good for Drill Dozer so I doubt we'll see a sequel. But if they did, I think they should give the Drill Dozer a couple more actions like double jumping at the very least and maybe a drill missile for long range attacks. Understandably it would make Drill Dozer less unique but maybe it would make the game flow better.