Vengeance: Woz With A Coz Review

Danny Trejo and Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, star in Vengeance: Woz With A Coz, now in the App Store. Yeah, you read that correctly. There's no need to adjust your glasses, contacts, or eyeballs, because Woz really is rocking a gun and shooting bad guys. Is this a match made in mobile heaven? Or just one really odd couple forged in gaming hell?

Truth be told, I'd rather see a screwball comedy starring these two, à la The Odd Couple, but I guess a game made to promote Trejo's new movie "Vengeance" will have to do. Penned by Woz himself, the game features infinite running gameplay with sliding, shooting, and dodging action. It's packaged with old-school aesthetics, a cash shop, and some of the most cringe-worthy voice acting that can be found in the App Store.

Players take control of Woz's actions as he runs across levels in a mad dash to save his darling wife, Janet (called J-Woz in the game). Simple controls will allow you to jump, shoot, slash, and slide through the scores of miscreants that are responsible for kidnapping J-Woz and setting our heroic Apple engineer on a rampage.

I would love to say that achieving the above actions was easy and that the controls were tight, but they simply weren't. I can't even count the number of times I had to start from the very beginning of a level after getting a third of the way through because Woz didn't jump when prompted. You see, any time you hit an obstacle like a crate or a wall, Woz explodes into ball of beard and embers. This means the lack of response from mashing the jump button will result in your failure over and over unless you get very lucky.

When the controls actually do what you tell them to, then the game becomes a bit more playable and maybe even marginally fun. Of course, the fun factor really depends on how much you enjoy boring, repetitive gameplay in which a middle-aged computer engineer shoots hoodie-wearing dudes while wearing a smile.

Woz can dispose of these bad guys by shooting them from afar or slicing them up when they're close enough for a melee attack. He starts off with a simple revolver and a knife, but you can use the coins you collect from shooting enemies and obstacles to buy upgrades or new weapons in the store.

If you've ever wanted to see Steve Wozniak run amok with a rocket launcher, now's your chance. Just keep in mind that collecting coins can take a good while and may require many run throughs of a level. For those who don't want to grind it out, there's an option to buy these "Kreds" with actual cash money.

This game was difficult to play, not because it was hard, but because it just wasn't very good. I give Wozniak some credit for trying to write what I guess he thinks is a fun story, but the end result was severely lacking in both fun and a good story. As much as I dislike the game, I still have to give him props for his efforts at voice-acting, which was a little hammy, but showed some evidence that Woz had a good time while recording.

But unfortunately, not even being able to play as Trejo was enough to save this stinker. Just do yourself a favor, save the $0.99 for this game, and put it towards a ticket to see Vengeance when it's released and maybe even get yourself some popcorn. Because unlike Woz and Trejo, those two things are definitely enjoyable together.

App Store Link: Vengeance: Woz With A Coz for iPhone & iPad | By ITN FLIX L.L.C. | Price: $0.99  | Version: 1.0 | 57.2 MB | Rating 9+