City Combat: Waves, Bosses and Where the Good Weapons Come From

You steer, he shoots

City Combat is a top-down shooter on a city street drawn as white outlines on black. The street scrolls forward on its own and the hooded hero fires at the nearest target by himself, within about 45 degrees of straight ahead. You never aim. You choose where he stands, when to throw a grenade and which box to walk over.

He moves with the arrow keys or WASD, follows the mouse when it rests over the game, or follows your finger on a phone, keeping the offset from where you first touched. Space or G throws a grenade (the green button on a phone, A, B or X on a controller). You start with 3. A grenade flies forward, bursts after about a second and deals 5 damage to everything in a wide circle, through anything standing in between.

How a wave works

Each wave asks for a number of kills: 8 on the first, then 11, 14 and 17, three more every time. Once you have them and the street is clear, the boss walks in. Beat it and the next wave starts at once, with the street scrolling faster: 6.5 units a second at first, 1.2 more after every boss, so about 37 percent faster after the first one.

The enemy count grows too. Four can be on the street at once on wave 1, one more per wave, up to nine. A new one appears every 1.7 seconds at first, 0.1 seconds sooner each wave, never faster than every 0.4 seconds.

Who you are shooting

• From wave 1: gang members with pistols (2 health, 100 points, they run at you) and with rifles (3 health, 150 points, the only ones who stop at a distance and shoot), zombies (5 health, 160 points, slow) and ninjas (2 health, 180 points, the fastest thing on the street).
• From wave 2: brutes (7 health, 300 points) and giant spiders (5 health, 220 points).
• From wave 3: ghosts (4 health, 240 points) and the golem (12 health, 320 points).

Two of them shrug off bullets. Bullets do 40 percent of their damage to ghosts and 70 percent to the golem, while explosions hit them in full, so rockets, homing missiles and grenades are the answer to both. Every enemy also gains health each wave: 0.6 per wave for the small ones and 1.2 for brutes and the golem, rounded down.

Helicopters, jets, bombers and flying saucers cross overhead on their own schedule. They are not part of the wave count, so watch what they drop and keep walking.

Five bosses

A boss has its base health plus 30 per wave:

• Wave 1, Kaiju: 120 health. It breathes fire.
• Wave 2, Big Ape: 170. It throws rocks.
• Wave 3, Snake: 170. It spits, and its body is wider to hit than the others.
• Wave 4, Mecha: 250. Long, thin energy beams.
• Wave 5, Spider: 250. It shoots webs.

Then the list starts over, with the Kaiju back on wave 6 at 270. A boss pays 2,000 points plus 500 per wave, 2,500 for the first, and leaves five boxes in front of you: rockets or homing missiles, one of the H-Bomb, the shield or the tank, health, a grenade and one of the four lighter guns.

The first fight is the slow one. With the starting pistol, which deals 1 damage every quarter of a second, the Kaiju takes about half a minute of hits, while it fires back the whole time. With a rifle it takes about 10 seconds.

The nine weapons in numbers

• Pistol (you start with it): 1 damage every 0.24 seconds, about 4 a second.
• SMG: 1 damage every 0.08 seconds, about 12 a second, with a wide spray that misses more at range.
• Rifle: 2 damage every 0.17 seconds, about 12 a second, and accurate.
• Shuriken: 3 damage every 0.2 seconds, about 15 a second, with a shorter reach than the guns.
• Boomerang: 4 damage every 0.72 seconds, on a curved path.
• Rocket: 6 damage every 0.76 seconds, with a wide blast.
• Homing: two missiles of 4 damage every 0.62 seconds, with a small blast. They find targets your other guns cannot reach.
• Tank: a cannon dealing 8 damage with a blast every 0.62 seconds, and nothing can hurt you inside. It lasts 12 seconds, then you get your previous weapon back.
• Grenades are separate: 5 damage each, thrown with their own button, whatever gun you hold.

The figures per second assume every shot lands. A weapon box replaces your gun until you walk over another one, so walking over an SMG while holding the rocket swaps a strong gun for a weaker one. Boxes disappear after 14 seconds.

What cars and enemies drop

Cars, buses, food trucks and parked tanks blow up when shot, for 50 points each. When one ahead of you goes up, it drops something nine times out of ten: a weapon 40 percent of the time, a grenade 15, a +500 box 13, health 10, a shield 7 and an H-Bomb 5. The tip in the game's own guide is right: shoot every vehicle on the way up to the first boss, because that is where the good weapons come from.

A downed enemy drops something a little over half the time: a weapon 20 percent of the time, +500 points 10, health 8, a grenade 7, a shield 4, the tank 4 and an H-Bomb 3.

The H-Bomb destroys every enemy and every vehicle on the street, with their points, and takes a third of a boss's full health. The shield blocks every hit for 8 seconds. A health box refills your bar, or adds a life when the bar is already full, up to five lives.

Lives, points and coins

You have 3 lives of 5 hit points. Any hit costs one point, a bullet or a body touching yours, followed by 0.6 seconds untouchable. Losing a life refills the bar and gives 1.3 seconds of safety. Once per run, a short ad brings you back with one life, a short shield and the enemies around you cleared.

Points come from enemies (100 to 320), vehicles and props (50), +500 boxes and bosses. Freex Coins (a virtual currency with no monetary value) come from the final score, plus 10 per boss beaten and 1 per 10 enemies downed. The game runs best on a computer, where the street fits the screen; on a phone the camera rises and follows the hero sideways. More shooters are in the arcade category.