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[i]AstroWings: Space War[/i] is a decently fun shoot-em-up that progresses from very easy to bullethell within its 22 short levels. With a voxel design to the ships, it wouldn't surprise me if the developer is a huge fan of Legos. Even though the game is decent fun, I lost interest in it after a few short hours because of hitting dramatic difficulty spikes that require a good amount of grinding to get through--and I wasn't really having all that much fun with the repetitive playing of previous levels just to earn money to buy the upgrades I needed.
There are a number of [i]AstroWings[/i] games on mobile, and so I am not sure if this is something reworked/ported from those. Even if it is a mobile port, there's enough care in making this game a PC version that doesn't show its mobile roots. Or maybe this was just made for PC to start. Either way, it looks and feels pretty good. There is no story at all, and no words, just plain and purposeless shooty action.
The shooty aspect is why most people are going to pick up this game, and that's the part that went from rather exciting to rather unexciting after a while--too quickly in fact. Perhaps someone can make it through without the grind and so the game would be more exciting, but still, I am not sure that I would feel a whole lot different even if I were able to finish the game. I am stuck on level 17 out of 22, and have been stuck for quite a while.
[h1]Positives[/h1]
+Good voxel artwork, all of the ships are meticulously designed and look great, especially the variety in the different bosses.
+Good upgrade mechanism that leads you down the path to progressive increase in power, rather satisfying to make the upgrades.
+Can turn the ship to face left, up, or right, allowing you to use the negative space on screen to your benefit.
[h1]Negatives[/h1]
-No remapping of keys, on keyboard or controller (only recognizes Xbox controller also).
-Unlocked ships through playing are only skins, no difference from one ship to the next.
-Loses attraction after needing to replay levels just to earn money to buy upgrade.
-No achievements, which would give players more goals to strive for.
-It keeps track of your high scores, but there are no leaderboards, so kind of pointless.
-The hitbox for your ship is not explained very well, and is fortunately actually a lot smaller than your ship itself.
[h1]Gameplay[/h1]
You start with one ship and others unlock as you earn your stars through the levels--too bad they don't offer any new gameplay, only skins. You will also earn in-game currency to make upgrades to your ship. You can eventually power up to quite high, and these upgrades are permanent, so you don't have to worry about losing anything once you make an upgrade.
Aside from your regular gun, you can also buy and power up your cannon, homing missiles, shield, special, etc. What's satisfying about these upgrades is that they coexist, so once you buy the canon, you will be firing that along with your regular bullets. And once you buy the homing missiles, they also start to fire without interruption to your main gun.
You can also buy and equip up to 3 shields and 3 specials for any run, the game prompts you on this before each level start. For me, most of my money went into the permanent upgrades and sometimes I purchased these single-use items for trying to bull my way through a level that I have been stuck on. It worked a couple of times, now I am just plain stuck.
The neat mechanic in this game involves your ability to rotate your ship in 90 degree increments, to face left, up, or right. This allows you to better use the negative space on the screen a lot better, compared to traditional shoot-em-up games that only allow you to shoot up or to the right typically.
When I said earlier that the levels are short, you only face a small handful of enemies, each with a big swarm of adds, before coming upon the boss in each level. Initial levels will take a couple of minutes and later levels take longer because the adds are annoying little shields for the enemies and bosses, and they take a while to clear out while the enemy shots pass right through them at you. Enemies start with slow and easily avoidable bullets, but later on adds start firing, and enemies start shooting much faster, bigger, and often homing bullets at you. It doesn't surprise me that I am stuck where I am, even with all of the upgrades I have purchased.
[h1]Controls[/h1]
Without an Xbox controller, you can only use your keyboard, with fixed controls. Or if you use your Xbox controller, you only have one control scheme. I feel like this is a major oversight. The controls work fine as mapped, but I would have changed both the KB or the controller mappings if I could.
[h1]Graphics[/h1]
Good voxel artwork, as above, the ship designs are meticulous and well done.
[h1]Music & Sounds[/h1]
Music is high-paced, decent but not too exciting. The sound effects work fine, but they get repetitive after a while.
[h1]Pricing[/h1]
The base price is $9.99 and is a bit high for something I found only exciting and fun for an hour. Current sale marks it at 50% off, which is fair for this game, I think.
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
[i]AstroWings: Space War[/i] was exciting to play at first, with some additional drive for the player to play more in order to make more upgrades and see how OP you can get. Granted, once you do, the earlier levels are then cake to run through, but the harder levels will still kick your butt. Well, at least they still kick my butt. I became bored while trying to farm money later in the game just to make for upgrades in trying to get past a couple more levels. I was successful, but I also felt like I was wasting time at this point.
First hour: quite exciting and fun.
After that: quite repetitive and boring.
Thus, I cannot recommend this game.
[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]
