RESOGUN (2013) review

RESOGUN

PS4 (exclusive)

Sony, Housemarque

Arcade, Side-scroller, Shoot-em-up

This won’t be a very long article, quite simply because there’s not a lot to say about Resogun. It’s one of the launch exclusives on Playstation 4 and the spiritual successor to the incredibly popular PS3 exclusive Super Stardust HD. Each level packs the same opening as the previous titles from developer Housemarque: «Save the last humans» (although this time the sound comes from the PS4’s dualshock controller) and so you’re off, thrown straight into action playing an extremely fast paced game with a very simple concept. At set times one or two humans are let out from their protective glass casings and you must pick them up and drive them to one of the several safe spots in the circular level. You play as a spaceship with the ability to move horizontally in orbit around the level as well as vertically (up and down). Your spaceship is equipped with guns being upgraded thru power-up pickups and your bullets follow the curvature of the map, but they do have a limited range. Enemies constantly spawn around you and you need to shoot them before they touch you. Get hit, you loose one of your 3 lives. It’s all classic arcade and you’ll quite quickly understand what to do. What’s going to take you a lot longer is to get the hang of it. Why? Because Resogun is actually insanely f#cking hard. But that most certainly doesn’t stop it from being one of the best games available on the PS4 at launch. Actually It’s one of the very reasons why! You see resogun places a real, genuine challenge in front of you, of the very good old fashioned kind. Are you likely to sit down with it for hours on end? No! It really can get quite frustrating and feel a bit repetitive, but still you’ll come back time and time again to try and beat those high scores, or just try to make it thru a level. Levels witch pack both increasing difficulty and great variety. All though the core concept remains the same, save humans and shoot alien spaceships, the levels keep adding new twists to change up the gameplay and make it harder.

I said you’d quickly understand what to do, and for the core gameplay that is very true, but beyond that i would’ve very much liked to find an in-depth tutorial available thru the games menu. See although it was easy to understand basic shooting mechanics and how to deliver (save) humans, i was at a loss about weapons upgrading, what triggered humans to need saving, unlocking levels throughout the various difficulties and game modes, and above all: what the various game modes actually is. What’s the difference between them and witch one do i play to unlock more levels. All stuff i also found hard to find online and only thru quite a bit of experimentation did i find the answer. I also felt they stepped up the difficulty a bit too heavily from the first to the second level. Although you have multiple difficulty-settings to chose from, the gap between the first two levels is quite huge. They should have put something in between to make the game seem a little more forgiving and welcoming to newbies of the shoot-em-up arcade genre, or just newbies to Resogun, because although I am experienced with the type of games i felt this one in particular had a very unique feel to it.

As finishing words i think i can say that Resogun packs a unique, fast-paced and above all damn entertaining challenge. Although i would like a short tutorial, it’s not that big of a deal and we do live in the age of the internet. Even though i couldn’t find so much info on it when the game first launched, today you can surely find all you need and if not, there are tons of forums to ask on; so i don’t really feel i can draw the game heavily back for lacking a tutorial. You’re not going to sit down for hours on end playing this game (at least most of you will not). It will be a quick escape from reality every now and then when your standard issue, AAA titles frustrate you beyond belief as those games often do. But this little escape is so enjoyable I’m going to give Resogun 85/100 and call it one of the best options on the PS4 at launch.