Resogun

Developer: Housemarque
Publisher: Sony Entertainment
Release Date: 29/11/2013
Format: PS4
From the people that brought you Super Stardust, comes another modern take on an old classic. Resoguns premise is easy. Rescue human survivors while fighting wave after wave of enemy ships. It’s a solid formula trouble is it doesn’t change whether you’re playing any of the 5 levels on offer.
Instead of saving planets, Resogun goes atmospheric as you fight to release captive humans and transport them to the escape pods to safety. It starts rather easy and brainless blowing up every block ship that should enter the screen. But as the overlaying voice shouts “Human lost”, you begin to wonder what you’re missing. Where Resogun first fails is telling you what on earth is going on and how to save said humans. Once the certain green glowing enemy has been destroyed, a human is then released, but that is only half the story. Often the human is released on the other side of the 360 degree world and enemy’s will emerge in abundance to stop you saving them before they are either killed or abducted again and lost forever. Repeat another 9 times until all ten are either lost or saved. Once the level is complete, you then face a final boss battle. These will be much bigger than previous enemy ships and will require hits in certain locations while avoiding their various attacks. Trial and error is the soup of the day as again little instruction is given on how to defeat these behemoths.
One of the more interesting features of Super Stardust that I loved was cycling your weapons depending on the enemies or asteroids you need to destroy. Resogun scraps all that and gives you one main weapon but thankfully Stardust’s Special attacks of Boost and Bombs return with a new addition of Overdrive. Over the course of the levels your main gun will improve, firing volleys of self-guiding missiles or a wide spread depending on which of the 3 ships you choose to be. There are little differences the three controllable craft, each have their own stats but little really vary between them. Just keep moving and firing away until everything is toast.
Publisher: Sony Entertainment
Release Date: 29/11/2013
Format: PS4
From the people that brought you Super Stardust, comes another modern take on an old classic. Resoguns premise is easy. Rescue human survivors while fighting wave after wave of enemy ships. It’s a solid formula trouble is it doesn’t change whether you’re playing any of the 5 levels on offer.
Instead of saving planets, Resogun goes atmospheric as you fight to release captive humans and transport them to the escape pods to safety. It starts rather easy and brainless blowing up every block ship that should enter the screen. But as the overlaying voice shouts “Human lost”, you begin to wonder what you’re missing. Where Resogun first fails is telling you what on earth is going on and how to save said humans. Once the certain green glowing enemy has been destroyed, a human is then released, but that is only half the story. Often the human is released on the other side of the 360 degree world and enemy’s will emerge in abundance to stop you saving them before they are either killed or abducted again and lost forever. Repeat another 9 times until all ten are either lost or saved. Once the level is complete, you then face a final boss battle. These will be much bigger than previous enemy ships and will require hits in certain locations while avoiding their various attacks. Trial and error is the soup of the day as again little instruction is given on how to defeat these behemoths.
One of the more interesting features of Super Stardust that I loved was cycling your weapons depending on the enemies or asteroids you need to destroy. Resogun scraps all that and gives you one main weapon but thankfully Stardust’s Special attacks of Boost and Bombs return with a new addition of Overdrive. Over the course of the levels your main gun will improve, firing volleys of self-guiding missiles or a wide spread depending on which of the 3 ships you choose to be. There are little differences the three controllable craft, each have their own stats but little really vary between them. Just keep moving and firing away until everything is toast.
There is little to differentiate
between the 5 levels or worlds. Nether have a unique style or certain way to
combat it. Only the background and locations of the human cells change. Only
really the last world does the scenery possibly effect gameplay by balls of
lava constantly rising from a pool. But with constant firing of your main gun
as you fly around these will not bother you in any way. The aim of the game is to get the highest
score possible. This is achieved by blowing up everything and saving the
humans, still only way to get a decent high score is by getting the score multipliers
as high as possible and keeping it there. These are limited to x5 on easy working up to
x15 on hard. But dying or no killing of enemy ships within a small time limit
will drop this straight back to x1. Very annoying when the last ship of the
wave is on the other side of the world, even more annoying is when you need to
have a certain multiplier at various points of the level to unlock a few human
cells.
Resogun is enjoyable to play. But after a few rounds and trying the different ships on offer you soon reach your level of difficulty and stop playing. The game gets very hard as you work though the difficulty settings, you can however, call in back up. Resogun offers a nice co-op mode. However, this is the same game and difficulty just with two people blasting away. It will make the more difficult levels easier but sadly makes no difference to the gameplay mechanics. The power-ups are just as scarce and you start fighting amongst yourselves to get them first.
As a debut title for the PS4, I can’t help but think why? Resgun looks and sounds great on PS4, the blocky materialisation of the enemy ships, especially the boss ships. All you a usual techno and satisfying sound off lasers and stuff blowing up. But it doesn’t utilize any of the consoles new features (except) the voice over shouting at you thought the Duelshock 4 controller speaker. The PS3 could easily manage this game and it’s a not a must have exclusive compared with other consoles. Like with Super Stardust, it’s a great pick up and play title, for a few minutes at a time.
Resogun is enjoyable to play. But after a few rounds and trying the different ships on offer you soon reach your level of difficulty and stop playing. The game gets very hard as you work though the difficulty settings, you can however, call in back up. Resogun offers a nice co-op mode. However, this is the same game and difficulty just with two people blasting away. It will make the more difficult levels easier but sadly makes no difference to the gameplay mechanics. The power-ups are just as scarce and you start fighting amongst yourselves to get them first.
As a debut title for the PS4, I can’t help but think why? Resgun looks and sounds great on PS4, the blocky materialisation of the enemy ships, especially the boss ships. All you a usual techno and satisfying sound off lasers and stuff blowing up. But it doesn’t utilize any of the consoles new features (except) the voice over shouting at you thought the Duelshock 4 controller speaker. The PS3 could easily manage this game and it’s a not a must have exclusive compared with other consoles. Like with Super Stardust, it’s a great pick up and play title, for a few minutes at a time.
+ Visually stunning,
+ 2D Shooting arcade action at its best, with a twist. - Very little to explain the game, - Annoying score multiplier restrictions, - Same 5 levels with little or no variation, - Gets very difficult fast. |
6/10
Chris Sowry |