Ion Assault: Preview

Coreplay’s, Ion Assault, is a twin stick shooter that forces players to think about their shots as opposed to shooting all willy nilly. The game puts you in small arenas where you shoot down asteroids to complete the level. If this sounds a lot like Asteroids, than you wouldn’t be wrong.  The game even controls similar to the classic arcade game which doesn’t translate very well to the dual stick controllers it was made for.  It makes it one of the few games where I prefer keyboard and mouse.

Ion Assault is not just a clone of Asteroids.  It’s core mechanic is to charge up your ships gun by taking in the multiple particles that surround the map.  The more you have, the stronger your gun gets and the more asteroids you destroy, the more particles you get.  This makes it easier to destroy the bigger asteroids as well as multiple smaller ones with one shot. Like Asteroids, the more smaller asteroids that are present, the harder it gets.  Thats not all, enemies will spawn in the small maps that all have unique designs and attacks that create more chaos in the particle infested world.  Power ups that spawn within the asteroids range from useful to “what did that do?”  It’s really frustrating collecting a useless power up that may or may not have caused you a life.  The game doesn’t do a great job explaining what the power ups do either which is a problem since these top down shooters should be simple.

Ion Assault is a beautiful game and the amount of particles in each level is impressive technically.  I really want to know how Coreplay did this without bogging down the frame rate because there are a TON of particles on screen. The game has nice sound effects but the music isn’t very memorable. From the first hour of playing, Ion Assault doesn’t do a whole lot to change its gameplay or aesthetics enough to keep me engaged in the game.  It felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again with some more challenge upon reaching the next level.  The game is cheap on PC and I would recommend twin stick gamers to give it a shot. You can pick it up along with six other games here if you have any interest.

 

 

5 Genres I want to see in More Twin Stick Games

As games evolve each year, we see most of the innovation in new games melding genres together. The RPG genre has been melded into just about every genre known to man so I won’t be mentioning it in this article. I should also mention that the term genre in all video games is fairly vague so I will try my best to explain what parts of the genre I would love to see in twin stick shooters.

 

Platformer

As you saw from last weeks post, I played Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Before playing this game, I never really thought how one of my favorite genres of my childhood could fit with the twin stick genre. Now, I can see exactly how jumping around in a top down perspective can work as well as the chaos of twin stick games.  I can imagine the level designs of Super Mario 3D Land/World but with hundred of enemies hindering your progress as you make your attempt to jump across platforms and maneuver across narrow passages.

Puzzle

The puzzle genre would fit perfectly with the top down perspective seen in twin stick games.  Puzzles would help the pacing in these fast paced action games similar to how the Devil May Cry and the God of War series uses them to pace their games.  Sometimes its nice to slow down the action and think about how you will go about a specific problem.  Think about a twin stick game having dungeons or even a Smash TV like setting with puzzle specific rooms.

Beat-em Up/Hack’n’Slash

Games like Double Dragon and, again, Devil May Cry have similar action pacing to twin stick games but is geared towards melee combat. The camera in twin stick games aren’t necessarily geared towards Beat-em Ups but I think it could work. Having it similar to Hotline Miami and making enemies more vulnerable to melee or ranged combat could add a bunch of new challenges to the genre.

MMO

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Exploring a giant world with friends, collecting loot and raiding dungeons would be a blast in a twin stick game. Would the shear amount of bullets hold up in a twin stick game? I sure hope so.

 

Tower Defense

Think about the Sanctum series but top down. The tower defense genre is already top down and contains an obscene amount of enemies. Having players worry about their towers and their player adds to the chaos of the genre.

Any genre’s you’d like to see melded with the Twin Stick Shooter genre?

 

 

 

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: Preview

The Tomb Raider series was never the most well received franchise but players hold many fond memories of the sexy polygonal explorer.  It wasn’t until I played the 2013 reboot that a finally learned to appreciate Lara Croft and her action and puzzle solving franchise. Before the reboot, Lara Croft was given a spin off title that gained great reviews and praised for its new co-op experience and gameplay.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (GOL) is a twin stick shooter with puzzle and platforming elements.  After being forced to find a magical mirror for some goons, an evil spirit named Xolotl is reborn as well as the warrior of light, Totec.  Your goal is to stop the fiend from bringing chaos to the world. As an arcade style shooter, don’t expect a dramatic story like the reboot.  What you should expect are some great gameplay mechanics and a great adventure.

My short time with the game, I was grappling on hooks, jumping on spears, shooting undead warriors and solving puzzles.  I always felt that puzzle elements in a top down shooter could work great considering most of the Zelda series have the same perspective.  Overall, the first couple of puzzles in GOL are relatively interesting and they provide optional puzzle rooms to gain new collectibles and upgrades. GOL proves that platforming in an isometric view can work really well. This is mainly due to the tight controls Crystal Dynamics has created.

GOL uses the Tomb Raider: Underworld engine which looks great with this arcade game when in motion. During the in-game cutscenes, you can see its limitations but the opening 2D cutscene looked fantastic. The music and sound is also very good but the voice acting besides Lara Croft, doesn’t fit the mayan warrior and the Xolotl.  I could obviously complain about their ability to speak English but an accent would have been nice.

I’m hoping to play more of the game in the future because it was very fun and holds true to the Tomb Raider series. Even with the new camera perspective and gunplay, the game still feels like a Tomb Raider game and I hope to see Crystal Dynamics bring this style of game back.

 

Halo: Spartan Assault Xbox 360 Preview

It has been quite some time since I mentioned the need for some AAA twin stick shooters.  Microsoft Studios more than likely (obviously not) read my article and brought us Halo: Spartan Assault.  The current Halo developer, 343 Industries, and the creators of the twin stick shooter, Gatling Gears, Vanguard Entertainment bring everything Microsoft a solid twin stick shooter.

As a disclaimer, I have not touched the Halo Series since the third entry so I am not familiar with any of the 343 Industries games giving me a strange sense of nostalgia coming back to the universe about seven years later. Playing through the demo, you will be introduced to a completely new story that Halo fans should appreciate assuming they follow the lore of the series.  The game lacks cutscenes and gives players briefings for the missions instead. The game feels like it was built for mobile devices because the missions are incredibly short and lacks the chaos we see in most twin stick games on PC and console. The game is very good looking and environments really pop out. The characters also look really good and have that “shine” I tend to see in the enemies and players armor. However, the lack of power on mobile devices can be seen with the amount of enemies. Drop ships will spawn about three grunts and I never saw more than five enemies on screen at one time.  With that being said, I did only touch the demo and the pace of the game is much slower than other top down shooters. As one would expect, you aim with the right analog stick and shoot with the right trigger. Halo: Spartan Assault does a great job feeling like a Halo game giving you all the same options with guns, power ups and grenades.  You can even get into vehicles and melee enemies.  Although it’s rare for top down shooter to have a jump button, I feel strange not being able to do so in a Halo game. Especially when the levels provide small barriers that I would like to jump over.

As I said before, the two developers do a great job converting the FPS experience to the twin stick genre but the slow pace of the Halo series adds for a underwhelming experience.  The plasma charge gun is powerful when charged but the lack of reticle or even a red dot sight makes aiming the gun hard in the top down setting. Turrets manned by grunts are relatively easy to take down but, from my understanding, you can’t take the grunt out without destroying the turret.  Turrets are extremely powerful and are incredibly useful. Unless, of course, you have to destroy it. Even the tutorial was structured in a strange manor.  The first thing you learn how to do is get hurt.  The point of the game is not to get hurt and even though you are teaching us the shield mechanics, the player will learn that anyways.

This demo didn’t give me any reason to come back to the Halo series but fans of both Halo and twin stick games should definitely check it out.  There is a great amount of gameplay variety for a twin stick shooter and a fair amount of replay if you want to get the high score or play with friends.

 

 

Hyper Princess Pitch: Review

Hyper Princess Pitch is not exactly a twin stick game but it is a top down shooter and obvious shout out to the arcade classic, Smash TV. The game was created by some guy named Daniel in Game Maker stating that is a a remake to the old DOS game, Operation: Carnage. Hyper Princess Pitch is a spinoff to his game Garden Gnome Challenge where Pitch plans to take down Mecha Santa.  Princess Pitch is angry at the mechanical being for not bringing her presents as a child so she plans on killing him.

 

There isn’t much of a story and really isn’t that much game. You can beat it in under thirty minutes but the multiple difficulties and multiple areas should keep players coming back. There is also a secret stage that will take quite some time to unlock for intense players. I forgot to mention that this game is extremely fun to play and easy to pick up. You control with the arrow keys and shoot pressing X and change weapons with Z (Or vice versa, I don’t remember). Your default weapon has unlimited ammo and shoots bricks while your other two weapons, ice and rainbow are limited. The ice is short range and the rainbow shot splits into a line when shot hitting more enemies and bouncing off walls.  There are multiple power ups that enhance your weapons and yourself.  There are also multiple power ups that just blow things up and clear the board. Once you beat the game, their are multiple secret combos that make the game easier and more fun. Getting this power ups is essential because the difficulty, even on normal, is extremely hard.  Bosses act similar to bullet hell games and enemies come from all directions.  The game is never frustrating because it rewards power ups quickly and it always feels fair. The only issue I have with the game is the shooting controls.  It would have benefited from a twin stick layout or a Binding of Issac control scheme.  I understand that it is aiming to be retro but like I said in my remake article, times change and you need to move with the times.

Hyper Princess Pitch is a very good looking retro game.  The pixel art is minimal and lacks the animation that we have seen from newer titles like Sword and Sworcery and Shovel Knight.  However the explosions and weapon animations look great and the game sounds great.  This game provides more value and polish than most video games that you pay for. That’s right folks, this game is free as well as some of Daniel’s other games on his website HERE.