Review: Double Action: Boogaloo

Double Action is a stylish multiplayer game about diving, flipping, and sliding your way into an Action movie mayhem. Imagine doing a backflip off some dude’s face, then diving through a window, gold-plated pistols firing in slow motion. There’s an explosion behind you and somebody’s stolen your briefcase full of money.

Style is the core concept and permeates throughout every match. Style points are accumulated and determine individual scores and must be built throughout the match. Doing dives, flips, slides, and rolls is not just for show: they’re a necessity for victory. Accumulating style points throughout a match fills a style meter and when the meter is filled, it allows short-term bonuses depending on the style skill chosen. Enemy kills also grant seconds of slow-motion “bullet time” which can be activated depending on the situation.

Double Action began when the intrepid game developer and stylish Action hero Jorge Rodríguez (known on the Internet as “Vino”) envisioned a game more stylish than any other. Work began in early 2011 when indie game developers from all over the internet joined him to collaborate on their global masterpiece of style. Joined by developers like Nick “Dementia” Kochman, Abe “Black Stormy” Brookes, and many others, they finally completed the game in 2014 and christened it Double Action.

Double Action: Boogaloo Gameplay

*Note that some of these bindings may change in future versions. You can always set them yourself in the Escape > Options > Keyboard menu.

[WASD] – Move your character

[Left Mouse Button] – Fire your weapon

[R] – Reload

[Space Bar] – Jump

[Q] – Switch to previous weapon

[CTRL] – Crouch

[# keys] or Scroll Wheel – Weapon inventory

[B] – Change your weapon loadout

Hold [V] – Use voice chat

[H] – Throw your weapon on the floor

[X] – Switch between third and first person camera view

Be stylish! That means doing dives, flips, slides, and rolls, aiming in, using Brawl, and using grenades. As you do stylish things you will fill your style meter on the right of your screen. When it gets full, the style skill you chose will activate, giving you a short-term bonus. When you die, you will lose some of your style meter.

You collect seconds of slow motion for killing people in stylish ways. Don’t forget to use your slow motion by pressing [C]. When you die you will lose two seconds of slow motion.

Mini-objectives are a great way to get style. Mini-objectives will appear periodically, such as Capture the Briefcase, Kill the Wanted Criminal, and Rat-Race to the Finish. Winning the objective will award you with a super style skill that’s equivalent to all the style skills combined.