TAGAP. The Apocalyptic Game About Penguins. It’s quite possibly the best Finnish made, action shooter about penguins you’ll ever play. It also happens to be just about the best looking freeware game I’ve ever seen.

TAGAP features some of the slickest looking penguin graphics we’ve seen since TuxRacer along with some great explosions and really sweet looking weather effects. Not to mention the fact that you’ll be seeing a whole lot of killer penguins onscreen at the same time without a hint of slowdown. TAGAP is certainly a treat for the eyes.

The game’s sounds manage to impress as well. The soundtrack isn’t just an endless loop like so many other freeware games. They really went to a lot of trouble composing the music for each level. Gun shots sound like gun shots, rocket launchers sound like rocket launchers and exploding penguins sound a lot like I imagine an exploding penguin would sound. You’ll be seeing a lot of exploding penguins. I found that aspect of the game to be odd considering it’s dedicated to Snowdrop a now deceased albino penguin from the Bristol Zoo.

So what’s not to like here? TAGAP looks and sounds great, it’s free and it has gore to spare. Unfortunately the actual gameplay is a bit shallow. It plays like a clone of that old PC shooter Abuse. You’ll be mowing down wave after wave of killer penguins, some of whom will be sporting machine guns, rocket launchers and any number of high tech weapons. You’ll fight the occasional boss (usually a slick penguin in shades named Pedro) and you’ll be forced to flip a few switches here and there. It really doesn’t take long before it starts to feel like you’re just doing the same thing over and over again…because you are.

Not to say the gameplay is terrible or anything. The game throws enough enemies at you to keep you on your toes and the eye candy certainly helps keep things feeling fresh for a while. There are some interesting power up mechanics in play here as well. Your penguin, Pablo, is basically all jacked up on steroids at all times. Took a little too much damage fighting that last horde of zombie penguins? Just pop a few green pills and you’re good to go. It’s little more than a thinly disguised health pick-up, but there are other types of pills you can use to augment your abilities in other ways. There’s a twist here too. These pills are habit forming…

TAGAP does have rudimentary gamepad support. It didn’t actually work for me using my PS3 remote, but I hear it works fine with most game pads, including 360 controllers. If anyone gets it to work, please let us know. Also on the technical side of things, I was having some problems with the graphics before I updated my drivers. Apparently these problems are common amongst users with Intel (crappy) GPUs, but once I installed the latest drivers everything worked fine.

When all is said and done, TAGAP is sort of like that hot hair stylist at your local strip mall. Sure, she may be a little little ditzy and shallow, but damn is she good looking. We’re here for a good time, not a long time right?

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