Developer: Triangle Studios
Publisher: All in! Games
Rrp: £12.99 (Steam)
Released: 19th March 2015
Available on: Steam
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control Pad
Approximate game length: 8 Hours
They came in the night, an endless horde of glowing neon pink maws in the dark. No matter how many you kill more come to take their place. It’s been hours since I last saw another human, a living one anyway. Maybe if I can make my way to the next safehouse I might find someone else…
This game is a twin stick shooter with minimalist graphics and hordes upon hordes of aliens that want to eat your brains to kill. The camera is set to an isometric angle and can’t be rotated, normally that’s not an issue but occasionally scenery gets in the way.
The general rule of thumb for this game is ‘if its pink you should shoot it’ because it’s either an enemy or something that contains a item. Items are represented as cubes that are either blue, green, yellow or pink, each colour representing what kind of item it is. There is an element of frustration that comes with this because you can’t swap out items that you have equipped or view what the item you want to pick up is. A perfect example of this that green boxes could be either, a turret, mines or energy beams but you have no clue what it will be until after you grab it.
As I mentioned in my preamble for this review the aliens are an endless horde thankfully so is your ammunition. They can and do teleport into the level (near the player of course) virtually anywhere, meaning you can never eliminate them all or clear a room out. Unfortunately I find the enemy variety to be lacking as there are only six different types to handle that just repeat endlessly.
Killing aliens and picking up yellow pick ups grants you points which are in turn used to purchase or upgrade your weaponry. This can really make all the difference on how you handle the hordes that will chase you. The game doesn’t pause while you upgrade or purchase weapons so you’ll find you’ll end up sticking with one weapon and upgrading that to its maximum extent. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for one fact, when you start a new level you lose all your weapons and upgrades starting all over again from scratch except this time the aliens take more hits.
Despite all my grumbling here this game isn’t actually bad, its quite fun in fact but I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the glaringly obvious flaws with this game. I’d personally wait until the game comes out on sale before even considering purchasing it.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Nex Machina
Geometry Wars
Assault Android Cactus
