Arrest of a Stone Buddha is a scrolling beat ’em up from Yeo and published by Circle Entertainment. Set in 1970s France, you’re on a job at a church to assassinate someone unknown, before breaking out, and then taking down all the henchmen in your way.
With a few ‘blink and you miss them’ notifications on how to play the game, not much else is said about how to play the game, how you got there, or whether you’re a hitman in the first place. Of course, you are; milkmen don’t perform a double-tap in broad daylight, right?
There’s nothing on screen to indicate health, which direction you need to go or how many bullets you have left in Arrest of a Stone Buddha, so you’re on your own. In fairness, you don’t need directions as it’s side-scrolling – it’s one way or the other.
Shooting the enemies in the game is quite subtle as your hitman will perform a variety of John Woo-style poses. If only there were more doves. These goons that are out to get you will continually spawn and remind me a little of the Kung-Fu Master arcade game, where you have to keep moving. However, what’s so tricky is distancing.
Your character walks the speed of a badass, with no sprint on offer, you have to play like a badass, too. As tough as you may think I am, I’m not a badass, so closing the distance between baddies on the left while the group on the right get closer makes it a hard game to play.
Equally, there’s no indication of when you’ll run out of ammo, so the strategy is to keep moving and shooting, but keeping the odd baddie nearby, getting up close and doing a melee attack. In this case, you snap the assailant’s arm by pressing B with a flick up, and anybody else unfortunate enough to get close to you won’t be shooting for months.
But, and here’s the big but: as you run out of ammo, it’s sometimes impossible to close the gap between those with guns, so you end up getting hit and subsequently dying. On death, you return to the beginning of the scene, which is harsh, as there are no apparent checkpoints.
Invest a little time in learning the controls, and they start to flow. There aren’t any combos to learn or moves to unlock, but as you become more competent with the controls, the further you get, and the more of a hitman you become.
Arrest of a Stone Buddha is a relatively short game, but I doubt most people would finish it in one go, as you need to get a feel of the gameplay first. In terms of story and atmosphere, this would be the kind of film I would seek out and watch numerous times. As a game, however, other than the satisfaction of finishing it, the likelihood of me replaying it is likely to be as a refresher, or coaxing a friend to try it out.
