From the bowels of the extended Reflexive Arcade library of games you have never heard of before comes a simple shooter that’s just better than average enough to get our “give it a try” seal of approval. Sure, it’s not a whopping great recommendation, but it’s not a whopping great game. But sometimes simple retro shooting games can be good fun, and this is certainly the case with Astrobatics.
The overall game is a lot like the classic arcade game Defender, but without the colonists to pick up and haul around. There are enemies and things to shoot while the world scrolls by in the background. It’s no revolution in design, but they do have a neat parallax effect caused by having your ship fly in front of some objects and behind others.
The game has a surprisingly playable difficulty level, which is a welcome change for this genre. Too many of these games are insanely hard, making them only good for hard core gamers. It also has very tight and fluid mouse controls, which is great for those of us who hate to touch a keyboard while we are playing.
Astrobatics has all the things you would expect from a shooter: guns, powerups, enemies, explosions, boss levels, mounted rockets... it’s pretty standard stuff. The music isn't great and terrain can be tough to dodge at times, but it has other things to make up for that. One thing that's a lot of fun is the way the weapons stack on your ship. Instead of just changing the shooting animation, you actually slowly cover your ship with turrets, guns, and other fun toys. You get a real feeling of building the ultimate ship, and before long, you have more guns and turrets than you have ship – not to mention a whole flotilla of little drone bots that circle your ship and ward off the enemies.
The story is of the classic “We are going to go right on the screen because that’s what the good guys do, and we’re going to kill everything that we find going left, because that’s what bad guys do” school of thought. I have to say, simple as it is, sometimes I prefer it when they don’t bother with the subtleties of “plot” or “characters” or even “text”. Just get right to part where I blow stuff up.
In all, a game that’s not so special that it changes anything in the casual game genre, but good enough to do what it sets out to do. Despite the shortcomings and its age, it’s still perfectly playable. Worth checking out if it's your kind of thing.
Review by
Nick Kojima
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