PixlBit

My Twin-stick shooter fascination has branched into a genre that is similar but not exactly the same. What I played this week is more along the lines of isometric multidirectional shooters. Really, the only substantial difference is that you use a trigger to shoot instead of using the right stick to both aim and shoot. Overall, it kind of feels pretty similar but maybe with less of a bullet hell feeling. Anyway, here's what I got into this week. 

First off, I did a quick review of the classic twin-stick shooters on Xbox Series S through Midway Arcade Origins: Robotron 2084, Smash TV and Total Carnage. Then I revisited Black Widow within Atari Flashback Collection vol. 1, and then Geometry Wars Retro Evolved. Finally I revisited Geometry Wars Galaxies on Wii, unlocking many more planets/levels, before packing up that system and bringing in the Xbox 360. However, I wasn't quite done with Xbox Series S yet. 

A Xbox Series S sale got me to try out three new games at roughly $5 a piece:

Archvale

This is a top-down view shooter. To me it feels very much like a twin-stick shooter even though the controls are not quite like that. I really like this game. It can get challenging, but it's not unfair. You can dash through attacks. There are boss fights and lots of exploration, equipment management, and crafting to be done. But it's not overly complex in those departments. It has the right ballance of things you can do and intuitive, easy to learn mechanics. I dig it. 

 Enter the Gungeon

So this is a very similar top-down game to Archvale but more difficult and a roguelike, so you will die, die, die. But you respawn to try again and get farther. It has a similar dash move as in Archvale and even more tactical things you can do in battle like turn over tables for cover. I like it a lot, but I do get frustrated with the roguelike formula. I have a hard time feeling I'm making any progress in a game like that. 

 Iron Crypticle

This is more of a true twin-stick shooter and also an arcade game. You battle a single screen at a time and progress along an array of levels to some kind of end. I like it, but I didn't take to it right away. It deserves a few more tries however. 

And then it was time for the Xbox 360 and finding Geometry Wars: Waves within Project Gotham Racing 4. PGR4 is a fine game, and I played several championships before really getting annoyed at the perfectionist type racing that it asks for. So I retired to my garage and found the arcade cabinet and played Geometry Wars: Waves. This is basic Geometry Wars but with waves of enemies that come in from all sides in rows instead of in random bunches. There doesn't seem to be much more that's different, which is probably why this didn't get added to Geometry Wars Galaxies. It's fine though and PGR4 is great if you like precision racing, which I have limited patience for. 

I poked around in my digital games for Xbox 360 that I downloaded before the store closed last summer. I played Black Widow again within Game Room. Remember that virutal space? It's really cool. You can create your own custom arcades and add real games to them. I wish I had known the platform would eventually fail and be closed to new purchases. I would've bought everything. But I have my favorites there and a handful of Konami games I can't play anywhere else like Finalizer. Black Widow doesn't quite have the resolution of the Atari 50 port, but it's cool to play it in a virtual space like Game Room. 

Then I dug into the Alien Breed games I bought just before the store closure. These are isometric view shooters made by Team17, the makers of Worms. But before Worms debut in 1995, there was Alien Breed in 1991. Three games were made for the Amiga and MS-Dos which never got console ports. Then in 2009 or so they reimagined the series with three games for XBLA and PSN. I played the first two this week. 

Alien Breed Evolution (or Episode 1)

So this is a dark, scifi, isometric view shooter that takes a lot from the Aliens movies and 2008's Dead Space. It's a very good shooter. It's about a 5 hour game ending in a tricky boss fight. There's exploration for items, logs and ammo. You have a selection of weapons and frequent save spots. The environment is interesting and in some places destructible. I found myself really absorbed by it. I had trouble with the boss fight, but I realized later in the sequel that if I had just read all the logs, I would've known what to do.

Alien Breed 2

This is very similar to the first one but takes a little longer to finish. There are fewer pickups, but that is because now you can buy items at save points. You can also upgrade weapons, gear, and physical abilities with cash pickups. I found myself feeling I had to search every locker and corpse to get enough ammo and health becuase I saved all my cash for weapon upgrades. You can also pick up armor. I was struck with how much the story resembled Dead Space which came out just a year before the first game. Also the end boss wasn't as difficult as the first one. There are also survival modes, but I found them pretty difficult. You can play these games co-op but probably not online anymore just local. I would've tried that if my friend had gotten these games, which are now not available except maybe on Steam. 

Next week I will be diving right into Alien Breed 3.