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Chippy | PC (Steam) | Review

4/7/2019

 
Chippy | PC (Steam) | Review - Pass the Controller

Mention the word “chippy” to someone in the UK and you’ll most likely induce mouth-watering thoughts of battered cod, mushy peas and chips drenched in salt ‘n’ vinegar. Having spent some time with Rust developer Facepunch Studios’ latest effort, however, the word now conjures up delicious memories of epic boss battles, as well as deep fried fish.

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by Liam
Andrews

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@liam_andrews5

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Developer: Facepunch Studios
Publisher: Facepunch Studios
Platform: PC (Steam)
Players: 1

Chippy is a twin-stick bullet-hell shooter in which you control a small ship that, apart from the big googly eye at its centre, looks like it could’ve leapt right out of an Asteroids arcade machine. With this endearing little fella, you take on a series of bosses (14 in total) in top-down encounters. 

​The first boss you fight serves as little more than a glorified tutorial, introducing players to Chippy’s basic gameplay mechanics and features. Here, you’ll learn how to de-limb the large, labyrinthine-like creatures by – and you’ll see what they did here – chipping away at pixelated weak points to expose protected cores, all the while avoiding both targeted and area of effect attacks. Like one of those adult colouring books it’s a simple premise, but surprisingly gratifying.

You’re also shown how to use power-ups to your advantage, earned through either destroying cores or via pick-ups that appear randomly. These perks are usually handed out in pairs, with the player only allowed to collect one or the other, and can often mean the difference between victory or defeat.

With it only taking a single hit to destroy your ship, shields, which allow you to absorb slightly more damage, were our perk of choice, though there are others, both passive and non, that are equally effective in certain situations. Learning what function each power-up serves takes a bit of trial and error, with some - like slo-mo, canon and double gun - being self-explanatory, while others - such as blink and fade - were less so, leading to some unfortunate early deaths.
You can ‘hijack’ replays, letting you take control and practice a specific phase of a fight. It’s a fantastic idea and a feature that should be the new standard in future boss rush games.
Occasionally, bosses will throw out power-ups surrounded by a red hue. Grabbing one of these glowing orbs grants the ability within, but also surrounds your ship with an encircling wall of death that’s very tricky to avoid, introducing a further risk-versus-reward element to collecting pick-ups.

​Boss fights are multi-staged encounters that have you duking it out with at least two versions of your opponent, with the difficulty, intensity and scale of enemies ramping up after every successive victory. And boy, do things get tough. Enemies eventually fill the small, square battlefield with a dizzying, hypnotic mass of projectiles in an attempt to stop you. Dying is something you’ll be doing a lot in Chippy, but respawning is instant, and each failure is more a learning opportunity than a frustrating setback.

If you do find yourself completely stuck – as we did during one particularly gruelling fight with a boss that could regrow its missing tentacles and cores – scrolling up through the leaderboards and watching the readily available replays of top players is a rather neat way of learning how to beat tougher enemies. By mirroring the fastest player’s technique, we went from utterly hopeless to 15th in the global leaderboards in less than an hour.
You can even ‘hijack’ a replay at any moment, letting you take control and practice a specific phase of a fight without having to put in the work beforehand. It’s a fantastic idea and a feature that we think should be the new standard in future boss rush games.

While most bosses share similar fundamentals – destroy or remove multiple secondary cores as quickly as possible whilst avoiding attacks to expose a larger, central core – there are occasional outliers, such as a fight that has you surviving waves of minions while automated lasers drill through their leader’s thick shields, which help to keep things fresh.

Facepunch have also done a decent job of imparting character and personality - there’s a very creepy maggot-like creature, for example - to what are essentially sentient mazes through just a few lines of text. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the arenas that house them, with the same plain black backdrop used for fights regardless of the type of environment bosses are supposed to inhabit.

​Even if, like this reviewer, you’re not that into bullet-hell or boss rush games (despite having also enjoyed Furi), we’d recommend you try Chippy. While we’d love to see the game reach additional platforms, it’s inexpensive and doesn’t require a top-tier gaming PC to run. It might be tough as nails in places, to an almost daunting extent, but it’s also exhaustingly moreish and incredibly satisfying. Like any good chippy, really.

Pros

  • Addictive, satisfying gameplay
  • Instant respawning avoids potential frustration
  • Superb audio on the whole
  • Leaderboard replays and the excellent hijack feature help to overcome tough fights

Cons

  • Arenas lack personality
  • Some deaths feel cheap
  • Initially confusing power-ups
  • Where’s the Switch version?!

8/10​
0 Comments

Blasters of the Universe | PS VR | Review

1/3/2018

 
Blasters of the Universe PlayStation VR review - Pass the Controller

As its He-Man and the Masters of the Universe-inspired name and neon vision of the future suggest, Blasters of the Universe is a humorous homage to the VHS era. Grandmaster Alwyn, an arcade gaming savant, is so dominant a player that he’s become one with the eponymous game, prompting you to challenge his throne across four levels of intense shoot-‘em-up action.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam


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Developer: Secret
Location

Publisher: Archiact
Interactive

​Platforms: PS VR, HTC
​Vive, Oculus Rift

​Players: 1
While you may have already played a dozen wave-based VR shooters if you’ve owned a headset for any period of time, Blasters puts a spin on things that serves to separate it from the crowd. By tapping into the bullet hell subgenre, which tasks players with avoiding increasingly complex patterns of incoming projectiles to stay alive, the game takes on both a fierce urgency and an enticing element of performance.

Rather than moving a 2D, top-down sprite around the screen in typical bullet hell fashion, players adopt a first-person perspective and need to physically dodge a range of enemy weapon fire. Your head serves as your hitbox and is, as such, all you need to worry about protecting; this might lead you to counterintuitively lean towards danger in order to squeeze your noggin through the narrow space between a net of bullets, or, less elegantly, throw yourself on the floor to nip under an intimidating barrage.

My legs are burning as I sit typing this (and even now as I sit publishing this) from the (quite literally) hundreds of squats I’ve performed whilst playing Blasters of the Universe, so do be aware that you’re in for a real workout, whether that’s appealing or not. Casual mode extends a helping hand to those less mobile or with small play spaces, but at the same time somewhat negates the well-tuned challenge that works with the inherent thrill of watching projectiles sail by your face to make Blasters compelling at a base level.

Unfortunately, on whichever difficulty setting you play, the realities of cable management that go hand-in-hand with playing VR standing (and that’s pretty much a necessity with Blasters) can pull you out of the experience. Whether you’re tripping over the PlayStation VR power cable or getting tangled in your headphones’ wire, not being able to pause the game whilst you reconfigure can lead to an untimely death or two. There’s already so much to juggle in-game that a real-world distraction is totally unwelcome, but it’s hard to really hold a grudge when the hardware, and not the developer, is mostly at blame.
By tapping into the bullet hell subgenre, the game takes on both a fierce urgency and an enticing element of performance.
This cumbersome issue isn’t something the pulsing synth soundtrack and sharp presentation can’t remedy, the pair drawing you back for another hit in tandem, but perhaps not before altering your loadout. Guns are crafted by choosing a frame and associated special ability, barrel, magazine, ammo type, and a module that provides a passive buff. A lot of possibilities open up as you progress and unlock new weapon elements, allowing you to rock an arcing beam rifle, explosive shotgun, ricocheting assault rifle, or really whatever you can dream up to fit your play style.

The game can only be played with two Move motion controllers (which are tracked particularly well here), one corresponding to your bespoke gun and the other being used to deploy your choice of ammo clips and a limited-use shield. This opens up a further layer of customisation, allowing you to, for example, equip a recharging magazine and focus exclusively on shielding with your off hand, or a small magazine with increased damage output that’ll need reloading on the regular, but should, in theory, eradicate enemies before they ever give you reason to deploy your shield.


If you’re anything like us, bigger will be better when it comes to the magazine, as the manual reload process is quite particular and differs depending on your choice of frame. Such is the precise art of reloading that we’d actually recommend using your dominant hand for it.
A lot of weapon crafting possibilities open up as you progress, really allowing you to rock whatever gun you can dream up to fit your play style.
Though swapping hands can initially prove disorienting, it ultimately lead us to slay all of the game’s long-form, large-scale bosses and emerge victorious on the other side. These battles require specific aiming and avoidance techniques that make them a challenging treat, though a glitch we encountered whereby each loss to the final boss caused an obnoxious buzzing sound until the game was rebooted did make the final leg slightly laborious. Fingers crossed that bug is squashed, which seems likely enough judging by the patch support already offered since launch.
Completing the campaign should take around three to five hours, though the exact number is really dependant on player skill and fitness levels, and that’s without taking into account time spent climbing online leaderboards and interacting with a couple of additional modes that round the package out. Challenge mode hands you a pre-built loadout and an objective to complete as quickly as possible, with the task at hand rotating after a set period of time, whilst Endless mode sees you, shockingly, survive for as long as possible to gain the highest score before meeting an inevitable end.

​
Despite relying on a played out concept, Endless is a highlight, placing trophies just out of reach to encourage a ‘one more go’ mindset. It randomises spawn patterns with each attempt to keep things fresh, though this does also affect balance, as luck of the draw can vastly impact your performance.

Still, with this mode in its repertoire, Blasters of the Universe might actually prove endlessly entertaining. Its thoroughly rewarding combat encounters can’t be bested with a lackadaisical approach, resulting in not just a fantastically fresh take on the bullet hell shooter, but also a workout regimen that makes you feel like a virtual deity... until your humanity comes a-knockin’ and the lactic acid takes hold.


Pros

  • A unique take on the staple VR shooter
  • Intensely challenging without feeling unfair
  • Smooth-as-butter motion tracking
  • Wide range of loadout customisation options
  • Longevity for your money (on that note, at the time of writing, it's available at a 15% launch discount)

Cons

  • No pause function for when cables become a hindrance
  • Reloading can feel finicky

8/10
0 Comments

Aperion Cyberstorm | Wii U | Review

8/2/2018

 
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Yes, you read that right, folks: Aperion Cyberstorm is a brand new twin-stick shooter for the dusty, clapped-out Wii U (it’s also available on the Switch and PC, plus it’s on the way to Xbox One, if you’re suitably modern). We enjoyed our brief hands-on preview with the game at last year’s Rezzed, but has that early glimpse of glitter faded, or blossomed into something altogether more splendid?

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by Rob
​Holt

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@acousticmagic


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Developer: aPriori Digital
Publisher: aPriori Digital
Platforms: Wii U, Switch, Steam, Xbox One
Players: 1 - 5
From bullet one, Bristolian developer aPriori Digital ladles on the neon colours and hammering techno beats and synthesisers, bombarding the senses across all three main game modes. Something that sets the game apart from the opening salvo of mayhem onward is the option to play any mode with four fellow humans, which is an enticing addition for those of you with multi-chums.

Cyberstorm’s gameplay is pleasingly simple: blow everything up, look for collectibles and survive - not necessarily in that order. Left stick moves your ship, right stick fires the guns, the bumpers provide a welcome speed boost, and the triggers utilise two special abilities, chosen from a selection including rapid fire, spread shot, shield, shotgun and more. Combining these abilities with the right ship - some crafts trading manoeuvrability for firepower, and vice versa - will aid in meeting your personal playstyle.

The enemies you engage get progressively more difficult, graduating from teeny-tiny buggers during the infancy of your quest(s), to truly dangerous foes with brutal, express bullet patterns. The power-ups you gather from the fallen (freeze bullets, fire shots, etc.) will, in turn, assist you in destroying the next batch of baddies - trust us when we say, you’re going to need ‘em!

Campaign mode takes you on a tour of four worlds, each consisting of several branching levels in which you endeavour to uncover the mysteries surrounding a faceless organisation, your lost crew, and a bunch of dudes called the Paladins. The levels are largely made up of quiet, empty corridors and loud, enemy-filled arenas, but the balance never quite strikes it right.
Cyberstorm’s gameplay is pleasingly simple: blow everything up, look for collectibles and survive - not necessarily in that order. 
We would’ve loved to have seen more emphasis on the calmer, explorative sections, as, although the arena and boss encounters are regularly thrilling, juxtaposing moments serve to make them all the more special. A stronger story and deeper exploration would’ve elevated the campaign on the whole, though that doesn’t do too much to detract from the fabulous, frenetic combat and boss designs that are on display and can be tweaked to your liking with a well-balanced array of difficulty settings.

Versus mode brings the party to your front room, in a way only a handful of titles do these days. Get four friends over and you really are in for a treat; you’ll fight each other in a variety of arenas, across nine different match types, in a sea of retina-obliterating colours and patterns.

There’s good ol’ fashioned arena fragfest, a heart-limited survival mode, the you-only-live-once anarchy of Last Stand, timed matches, standard King and Control match types, and even more. This Doctor recommends a prescription of pop and pizza to perfectly compliment the glorious, is-it-skill-or-luck fracas on offer in Versus. If you do happen to be a William-no-associates, fear not, as aPriori have been decent enough to include an option to add bots instead of flesh and blood players.

Onslaught mode is the tenser, Gears-esque Horde mode, where you smash endless waves of radiant rascals, achieving a star rating based on your lasting power. These stars then unlock new, trickier Onslaught maps to weather.
Versus mode brings the party to your front room... Get four friends over and you really are in for a treat!
It’s hard to deny the sheer amount of content on offer here, both in single and multiplayer, but there are a few areas that could’ve done with an extra bit of chim-cheroo. Aside from the Campaign mode misfires, the chief culprit here is the music, which just doesn’t quite achieve true synergy with the game's visuals. Fights generally develop into bullet hell madness, so it’s strange that the techno doesn’t follow suit and amp up the rhythmic intensity.

So, in spite of its limitations, it’s hard not to recommend Aperion Cyberstorm. The music might be a bit of a letdown, the campaign might be a tad corpulent, and the gameplay might not be particularly innovative, but what is here is just ruddy good fun. Get some friends round, bust out those Wiimotes (or Joy-Cons) and enjoy £10.99 well spent.

Pros

  • Huge amount of content
  • Fantastically fun multiplayer
  • Intuitive controls
  • Great value for money

Cons

  • Music doesn’t quite match the action
  • Campaign lacks variety
  • Low on originality

7/10
0 Comments

Nex Machina: Death Machine | PS4

21/6/2017

 
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Nex Machina is a top-down twin-stick shooter from Resogun developer Housemarque. Its arcade-style design harkens back to retro classics like Robotron and Smash TV, which is no surprise considering the famed designer of those projects, Eugene Jarvis, was aboard the development team.

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by Sam
​Sant

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​@SlamShotSam

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Developer: 
​
Housemarque
Publisher:
​
Housemarque​
Platforms: PS4, PC
Players: 1 ​- 2

Taking place in a distant future awash with bright neon colour, your time in this “cablepunk” setting is exclusively spent in the midst of pure action. You’ll find no narrative here, just an unapologetically old school shoot-'em-up breathed new life with a few mod cons.
 
It boasts painstakingly detailed and impressively dense 4K/HDR visuals on PS4 Pro and PC, a spectacular level of destruction that sees a deluge of debris shower the screen, uncompromising 60fps performance no matter the level of on-screen carnage, and an absolutely thumping synth soundtrack.
 
On the gameplay front, you’ll battle your way through a number of themed and segmented Worlds, saving vulnerable humans along the way. Clearing every enemy in a segment triggers a seamless transition to the next, each gradually building in complexity towards a closing boss encounter, for which you’d better have brought your bullet hell skills, because they can get intense.
 
Though Nex Machina demands speed and precision to the point we find ourselves playing perched on the edge of our seats, leaning into the screen with a laser-focused gaze, the frenetic action is actually very accessible at a base level. With only four button inputs and a range of difficulty levels, it’s an easy game to pick up and play.

In typical Housemarque fashion, however, there’s much more beneath the surface for those that wish to delve a little deeper. Notching up the difficulty boosts movement speeds, introduces more enemies to kill and humans to save, lowers your pool of lives and continues, and even introduces a punishing sixth World.
Nex Machina demands speed and precision to the point we find ourselves playing perched on the edge of our seats, leaning into the screen with a laser-focused gaze.
That’s a lot to tackle, especially with no tutorials or hints of any kind, but by bravely leaving you to uncover its many nuances through observation and trial and error, Nex Machina ensures its self-learnt intricacies are cemented in your mind. The gameplay communicates information fluently, steadily introducing an evolving range of baddies to illustrate what attacks you can and can’t dash through, what you do and don’t have to kill to progress, or who’s the biggest overall threat and resulting primary target of a given wave. Knowing how to correctly manage enemy types to stop them controlling portions of a stage is integral to your survival, while identifying those that target helpless AI humans and dealing with them quickly will work wonders for both your score and your conscience.
That said, choosing whether or not to save humans is a constant risk vs. reward minefield; you’ll need to put yourself in harm’s way to grab them and gain the associated points to climb the online leaderboards, but, if you die in doing so, you’ll end up worse off than if you'd left them to their doom and saved your own skin.

​Any single blow is fatal in Nex Machina, and death carries some significant repercussions. Not only do you lose a life and a chunk of the score multiplier you’ve worked to build - along with your all-important, trance-like flow - but you’ll also drop one of the upgrades (increased range, bullet spread, etc.) or secondary weapons (these range from a sword to a rocket launcher, with use limited by a brief cooldown period) you've collected. This often leads to multiple consecutive deaths as you foolheartedly rush to pick it back up from the spot you died, or just struggle on in its absence if it was something you were relying on. All too often we’ve been on a perfect run only to lose multiple lives and upgrades successively to the mechanic, leaving us caught in a rut and faced with besting that same difficult section now at a marked disadvantage.
 
You can keep retrying while you maintain a stock of continues, but when they run dry it's a legitimate game over and you have to start back at square one. Whilst that’s somewhat jarring by today’s standards - especially when you consider the fact you also can’t save, so you’re in it for the long haul when playing Arcade mode, the game's main attraction - forcing you to replay sections helps to develop your skills, which will see you glean more from the game in the long run. It might seem irritating if you don’t remember a time when this was the industry standard, but the extra practice really does make perfect.
 
You’ll never actually be at too significant a loss, mind, as the game only takes around two hours to play from start to finish. Despite what you might be thinking, that isn’t any real cause for concern when it comes to Nex Machina’s value proposition, as it’s massively replayable. Memorising enemy spawn patterns and the location of secrets unearthed by destroying environments is endlessly rewarding, allowing you to implement that knowledge into future runs to achieve lofty new high scores.
Arcade and Single World modes (the latter allowing you to practice Worlds out of sequence) can be played in co-op if you have a nostalgia-hungry pal to hand, which we mean literally, as it’s fittingly (though still disappointingly) local only. The suite of modes is rounded out by Arena, which tasks you with meeting gold, silver and bronze score thresholds whilst wrestling with modifiers like limited timeframes and increased tempo. They take place in the same familiar Worlds, but are just about different enough to provide an engaging break from the main thrust now and then, which is perhaps how they’re best consumed, with only eleven challenges on offer.

Housemarque proved themselves capable of keeping arcade-style games relevant in the modern marketplace with the release of Resogun, but in partnering with Eugene Jarvis on Nex Machina they’ve surpassed themselves. Filled to the brim with pulse-pounding, nail-biting and addictive action on a gorgeously impressive scale, never skipping a beat, constantly complemented by the standout, retro-infused soundtrack, the game is a modern shoot-’em-up masterpiece that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the 80s classics that inspired it.
 
Pros
 
  • Tight, challenging and moreish gameplay
  • Stunning visuals
  • Flawless technical performance
  • Range of modes to keep you invested
  • Hugely replayable and rewarding to do so
 
Cons
 
  • Easy to get stuck in a rut when you die and lose your upgrades
  • Local only co-op will rule it out for some
 
9/10
0 Comments

Ghost Blade HD | Xbox One

31/3/2017

 
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Are you missing the Dreamcast-era glory days of bullet hell shoot ‘em ups? If, like me, you’re firmly in the ‘yes’ column then look no further: Ghost Blade HD brings the staples of intense techno, big bosses, vivid colours and classic art design together to concoct a smashing shmup that manages to stay the right side of entertaining, despite its lack of originality.

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By
​Rob
​Holt

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@acousticmagic

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Players: 1 -2
Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, Wii U
Developer: Hucast Games
Publisher: 2Dream
Like many shmups before it, Ghost Blade boasts a simple, intuitive control system. There’s one button for a standard spread of bullets from your chosen craft, another creates a beam of destruction ripe for taking down girthier foes, and another fires off one of your precious stash of bombs. Managing these three types of fire is crucial to your success, as is the speed your left thumb can navigate your dinky craft around the battlefield.

The game features five traditional stages in a vertically scrolling arcade-style arrangement, with enemies that move towards you, around you or, in the case of the towers, just stand still. Those of you who have played genre classics like Ikaruga and Giga Wing will be familiar with what Ghost Blade is trying to achieve; fast paced, bullet dodging fun that begs to be played over and over again.

Ghost Blade gets a lot of this delightful formula right: the music for one is absolutely fantastic - think arcades of the 90s, full of hectic electronic beats, synthesizers and warning klaxons - and the gameplay is finely tuned, we just can’t shake the feeling that the game borrows too much from its predecessors.

​Bosses are a large part of shmups, and, unfortunately, they’re a weak point here. The good humoured warning signs that blast across the screen are great, but the mostly generic metal beasts that jump out after them simply aren’t. It’s not that they’re no fun to shoot at, it just felt like we’d seen these grey towers and ships fire these same bullet patterns a hundred times before.

In spite of its familiarity,
Ghost Blade is a real blast (pun intended) to shoot through. The enjoyably high difficulty level - especially on the hard setting - will provide shmup fans with hours of play. The online leaderboards, score attack mode and two player option add considerable meat to its bones, whilst the invaluable training mode provides the novice with a benevolent hand as well. ​

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If you’re a big shmup fan then we’d recommend adding this one to your collection, but for the non-believers, there’s nothing groundbreaking here to warrant your attention.

Pros

  • Cracking soundtrack
  • A fun challenge
  • Online leaderboards encourage repeat play
  • Fast, frantic gameplay
  • Simple, efficient controls

Cons

  • Will only truly appeal to diehard shmup fans
  • Repetitive enemy types
  • Boss designs lack originality

Score 7/10
0 Comments

Star Ghost | Wii U

22/3/2016

 
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Star Ghost proves yet again that the Wii U’s lack of third party support is insignificant when you have top quality independent developers on-board.

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​by Rob
Holt

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​@acousticmagic

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Platform: Wii U
Developer: Squarehead Studios
Publisher: Squarehead Studios
Players: 1
Created by Rhys Lewis’ (formerly of Rare and Retro Studios) one man studio Squarehead, Star Ghost is a classic horizontal scrolling SHMUP (or shoot ‘em up for loathers of abbreviations) with one big difference; Donkey Kong Country’s barrel control mechanic.

The controls are some of the smartest, simplest we’ve seen in a SHMUP; left stick aims your guns, and the A button controls your thrusters, that's it. It’s the thrust mechanic that’ll throw veterans of the genre off at first (this SHMUP lover included), as the past dictates that you pump a button for the guns, not the flight path of your ship. Keeping the ship steady and aiming proved tricky at first, but half an hour in and we were hooked on this innovative new style.

Tasked with blasting everything in your path, you’ll control the titular Star Ghost through twelve star systems, each system in turn containing three to five stages. There are fish like creatures, giant centipedes, amoeba-like foes (with just a little nod to Metroid) and end-of-system bosses called sentinels to pulverise. Combine that with navigating tight jagged walls and asteroid fields and you’ve got one hell of a challenge.

As you fly through 
Star Ghost’s levels you’ll also notice the sheer amount of collectible items. These range from boosts to your guns’ fire rate, bullet spread, health and traction field to special power-ups like shield generators and score multipliers. Try to contain your glee when you pick up the vaporiser for the first time, disintegrating your enemies really is therapeutic! These pick ups expire quickly  though; so be sure to keep collecting them to keep your ship in prime condition. Even collecting troublesome viruses that disable your weapons has it’s rewards; keep Star Ghost steady for long enough and watch everything on screen explode!​
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Upbeat, electronic music drives you forward on your quest.
The visuals are beautiful too, with the crisp bright colours of the enemies and pick-ups juxtaposing nicely with the dark backdrops of space. The way enemies and asteroids dissolve under the might of your guns is immensely satisfying and commendable, especially for a game built by one man (and off the back of initial iOS game Star Drift). The fact that these enemy patterns and terrains are procedurally generated makes the game even more impressive.

The music and audio are also splendid, with another Rare alumni, David Wise, providing the soundtrack. Upbeat, electronic music drives you forward on your quest - our personal favourite piece features at the end of each stage, and is reminiscent of the tunes from TV show The Weakest Link, something that brought a smile to our cynical faces. The sound effects from the guns and enemies works fantastically well in tandem with this (especially the laser power of the vaporiser!), add to that the warm yet sardonic voice over (“great run, Commander”) and you have an aural success.
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The only issue we have with Star Ghost is the lack of online leaderboards, something that would add so much life to the game. For an arcade shooter to be missing that in this day and age is a real shame, but we’re sure we’ll get over it. There aren’t any other game modes either, but this really isn’t a big deal when the game provides such a steep difficulty curve and challenge.

If you’re looking for something new to play on your Wii U, then we strongly suggest you get yourself Star Ghost. £7.99 is a steal for the sheer amount of hours you’ll get out of it, blend that with the satisfying control scheme, gratifying guns and super duper soundtrack and you have a real treat.

Pros
​
  • Excellent, fresh gameplay mechanic for the genre
  • Huge challenge
  • Beautiful visuals
  • Great music and voice acting
  • Procedurally generated enemies and terrains

Cons

  • No online leaderboards
  • No other options outside the main game

8/10


Have we left you wanting for more from Squarehead? Why not check out our developer interview.

Assault Android Cactus | PS4

9/3/2016

 
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You could be forgiven for thinking the twin-stick shooter was a genre that didn't allow for a lot of variety when it comes to gameplay and longevity. Of course, in some cases you’d be right – what seems like great fun at first can quickly become stale and repetitive, leaving you with the bitter taste of disappointment. Thankfully, Assault Android Cactus takes that assumption, turns it on its head and has you blasting wave upon wave of enemies quite happily – for a while at least.

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by Emily
​Munro

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​@pootplaysgames

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Platforms: Windows PC, PS4
Developer: Witch Beam
Players: 1-4

Assault Android Cactus is a top-down twin-stick shooter with a vibrant, cartoony image and feel. These kind of visuals can easily go one of two ways; be it the gorgeousness of the likes of a UbiArt game, or something that looks quite out of place and ugly by today’s standards. Whilst in this instance the graphics on display don’t feel quite up to scratch by modern standards, the character and level design do work relatively well.

You’re quite literally thrown into the game’s mechanics from the get-go, and for all intents and purposes they functional. You’ll blast (literally) through the tutorial for Assault Android Cactus pretty quickly – after all there’s not really a great deal for you to learn. Essentially, your only aim is to kill the enemies as quickly as you can, whilst taking as little damage as possible. 

You start the game as an assault android called Cactus - hence the title - who’s investigating a distress signal from a nearby space station. Once you’ve completed the short but sweet tutorial as her, you’ll have a choice of five other androids to play as, all with different weapon loadouts, so it’s worth having a look at them properly to figure out which one most suits your play style (and not just pick one because it looks like you… not that I did that…). Primary weapons are standard fare and unique to each android, while secondary weapons are more powerful but overheat quickly, adding some challenge and variety to the gameplay. Unfortunately, the ways in which you can vary combat are, naturally, restricted by the character and weapon options available, and to this end it can begin to feel tiresome after a while.
Combat is very fast-paced, and the waves of enemies can quickly become quite overwhelming if you’re not paying enough attention, or making use of your weapons efficiently. So, pretty standard shooter fare in that respect. Another addition does make it a tad more interesting – rather than an actual health bar, you’re trying to preserve your battery power. As your power level drops, you need to find battery pick-ups to top up your charge level or face unconsciousness when it depletes. Whilst in reality it serves the same purpose and is just a slight variation on a standard health bar, it does help make things that bit more interesting.

​
Although there’s not much variation in the combat itself, Assault Android Cactus is regardless fun to play. There’s just something immensely satisfying about mowing down a swathe of rogue AI with a flamethrower. The levels are designed in such a way that they don’t get too stale or repetitive quickly, and in some cases they actually change as you progress through them, making it more difficult to progress.
Picture
They’re also not expansive spaces, which in this case works quite well – it makes you take full advantage of the different power-ups and your weapons, which in turn makes you work around the terrain, rather than just spinning round in a circle trying to shoot everything (which I can confirm results in premature death). At the end of each stage, you’re presented with a score and a ‘grade’ in typical arcade fashion, which adds a nostalgic element of fun and competition to the story, as well as replayability.

​At various points you’ll be forced into boss battles which can unfortunately be quite frustrating to finish. They take a lot longer than normal stages and you’ll need to be a lot more careful when it comes to maintaining your charge, thanks to power drops being harder to come by. It breaks up the monotony of just shooting wave upon wave of enemies, though, which is much needed in games like this.
​
It won’t leave your mind blown, but it will give you an android with green hair and a flame thrower...
Generally, Assault Android Cactus is a decent twin-stick shooter by most standards. It jumps most of the hurdles presented by the type of game that it is, and it does have a progressive story alongside other play options including an endless mode. They all serve to add a little more replay value to the game, and it is the kind of game you can easily pick up on a whim and dive back into without much hassle.

The biggest downside is that because combat is such a massive part of the game (it revolving entirely around that one mechanic) it can become very samey and feel a bit stale a couple of hours in, which will likely have you frustrated in time. If you’re after an hour or so every now and then of mindless, fast-paced, frantic and explosive fun, though – especially if you’re playing alongside another person – Assault Android Cactus is a decent way to do that. It won’t leave your mind blown, but it will give you an android with green hair and a flame thrower, and really, can you say you don’t want that?

Pros

  • Character choices are varied and unique
  • Well written, quite humorous in places
  • Level design is very well done
  • It’s great fun - for an hour or so

Cons

  • Visuals look slightly dated
  • Combat gets stale
  • Campaign could be longer
  • Requires a co-op partner for maximum enjoyment

7/10
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