Antirocketh

Hours played at review time, across 24 reviews with recorded playtime.

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [h1]The Game[/h1] [i]Antirocketh[/i] is a frantic shoot-em-up survival game with simple controls made by [b]ATOMIC BREATH[/b], who also developed [i]MEANDERS[/i] and [i]Overchunked[/i]. This game more closely resembles [i]Overchunked[/i] in that it's a score-chasing arcade-style game that you try to survive as long as possible in. The game is simple to understand. You face endless falling rockets from the sky. You have a small laser-shooting machine on the ground, trying to prevent these rockets from landing. You use your laser to morph the rockets into harmless objects, which then you collect in your cumulative inventory. I don't know if the game idea had inspiration from Douglas Adams's [i]The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[/i], but that was definitely the first thing that came to mind for morphing rockets into harmless objects. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] When you fire your laser at the rockets, their color changes, and upon completely changing their color, they will morph. The objects are merely collectible and also provide you with a score bonus depending on when you collect them after they have been morphed into from those rockets.These items are pop culture references, modern memes, video game references, etc. In addition, you also get three gameplay morph items, two of which are useful. Of course these three things are Health, Energy, and Bomb. Health and Energy replenish your health or your laser energy, and these are the useful ones. The Bomb you want to avoid because they cause damage to you if it lands on you or you are within the blast radius when it does fall. If you catch a bomb you receive a much high damage counter than if you are in the remote blast radium. Likewise, if you collect Health or Energy out of midair, you get more of a boost, and as the item sits on the ground longer and longer before you collect it, the less benefit it will provide for you. Your health is gradually dwindled down by these falling rockets, each of which will cause damage as they touch down. If you accidentally run into one physically, it will cause more damage. The game ends when you reach 0 health. The scores are tabulated on a global leaderboard in two categories, total score and number of rockets morphed. (The highest scores are absurd, by the way.) Your points can be used to change display settings, in the usual [b]ATOMIC BREATH[/b] fashion. In addition, you can use your total cumulative number of rockets morphed to buy upgrades for your machine. There are 10 upgrades total, and the last one can only be purchased after the first 9 are complete. The three categories are Laser Power, Laser Capacity, and Laser Refill. These have 3 ranks each. The final one is Triple Laser, making your machine fire lasers from the front and out the of the sides simultaneously. Speaking of upgrades, I was really excited to get this last upgrade because I expected a spread-shot kind of a laser configuration. So I could cover more ground quickly. But this last upgrade was rather disappointing overall, because while it accomplishes what I want it to do, it does it in a really odd-looking fashion that is difficult to get used to. Expect short bursts of gameplay out of this one. There are people who might choose to chase after all of the scoring achievements and leaderboards for a few hours on end. But for the average player, your game will last a couple of minutes each. It's just an easy game to continually play and reset after each run. This is particularly the case after you have purchased all of the upgrades. [h1]Controls[/h1] Game offers both controller support and keyboard. I played with both, which are equally functional. Movement on the controller supports D-pad. Whereas on the keyboard the game is played with A/D for left/right, and Spacebar for laser. You can choose to tap on the laser button or hold it down for a continuous blaze. But keep in mind, you have a limited energy capacity that can run out. [h1]Graphics and Music[/h1] Simple graphics, nothing to write home about. Music is also not too remarkable. [h1]Audience[/h1] Easy to learn controls and gameplay concept makes this game reasonable for anyone. If you don't like franic arcade-style games with a primary focus on score-chasing, you might wish to stay away. [h1]Pricing[/h1] Base price is 1.99 USD, pretty cheap and reasonable for the game. (By the way, the game is currently on sale on the store page, and also already in a bundle.) [h1]Positives[/h1] +Easy to learn +Interesting idea +Cheap +Facilitates simple One-More mentality +Collectible items keeping the player interested +Leaderboards +Achievements (not easy to 100%) [h1]Meh[/h1] >Undecided on the last upgrade, just doesn't feel quite right [h1]Negatives[/h1] -It really bugs me that in a shooting/survival game that you cannot avoid all of the damage. Even with all of the upgrades, I have a ton of trouble keeping up with all of the falling rockets and need to choose to focus on one part of the screen, while the other part slowly dwindles down my health. With the final upgrade, this is less of an issue, but I don't like the way those lasers fire horizontally from the side, so I guess this is my own issue. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] [i]Antirocketh[/i] is another project from [b]ATOMIC BREATH[/b], who has provided us with 3 different games with very different gameplay so far. My own personal order of preference places [i]MEANDERS[/i] first, then [i]Overchunked[/i], then finally this game. I am not a huge fan of developers putting their games into a bundle 2-3 days post-release, but I guess it is a good way to get rapid increase in players in the early days of the game. I do understand that the team is only two people, and pushing out this third project in the same year seems to make things feel a bit rushed. I am still recommending this game because I think it is a fun game in short spurts and all 3 of their games have fundamental differences in gameplay. If you haven't checked out the other two games yet, do that before getting this game, in my opinion. [quote]I received the product for free. I did not receive any compensation to write this review. The opinions represented here are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way.[/quote]