Escape from Terror City

A really neat game! Gameplay-wise it reminds me most of the on-the-rail sections of Contra (take that with a grain of salt though: I'm basing this off of gameplay footage because I haven't actually played Contra) and the look of the game, which is probably the most striking thing about it, really does feel like an NES game brought to three dimensions, with its angular geometry and low-res textures. A tip for people with controllers: try remapping the shoot button to the right trigger. It defaults to the B key (using the Xbox controller as reference) and as the two analog sticks are constantly being used to aim and shoot, it's a more natural fit.

So far I've played through Escape from Terror City to completion once, and I definitely plan to go back and bang my head against the hard mode. It's an over-the shoulder, semi on-rails shooter in the style of Cabal and Wild Guns with multiple paths through each level and secret shortcuts. Normal difficulty is moderate, but not too bad, especially if you've played a lot of bullet hell shooters. The art style is right up my alley, with pixel art textures on low-poly models (think early-mid 90s Sega) and the dialogue evokes poor translations of the past but happens to be in perfect, enjoyable English. There was one bug I encountered a few times in which barricades went up before you fully entered the next area, blocking you from progression, but checkpoints are very forgiving, so it was never too much trouble. But otherwise, if you're looking at this game and have some inkling that you might like it, you probably will. Big recommend from me.

-What could have been a nice little gem. I love discovering games it's one of my favorite things to do in gaming and it's a damn good feeling when you feel like you have found a gem hidden deep in the fields. Escape from terror city initially started out as that game but quickly dwindled once its numerous bugs and horrendous camera came into play. Underneath the numerous issues this game has lies a really awesome game that I wish I could recommend to people but sadly can’t. - What is Escape from terror city? To begin, Escape from terror city is a run’n’gun game that feels very similar to the base levels from contra. You play in a 3rd person point of view where you move your character from section to section shooting down enemies. With Chunky 3D graphics in similarity to megaman legends I love the look of the game and WANTED to love the game itself. It's very fast past, high action and a very short game that will run you about 40 minutes. - So what are my issues? The core gameplay loop is honestly very fun and takes you back to a more simpler time in gaming but that is honestly about it. To begin, there are an insane amount of bugs ranging from funny to literally game breaking. To explain , the camera is horrendous making you move in very tight spots where you sometimes will have the wall blocking your whole view. This is bad due to the fact you are constantly having to move and jump around to dodge bullets so many times you will be thrown off or quite literally will throw yourself off the map and die. Furthermore, there are times when you clip through the level resulting in game overs throwing you back to the checkpoint. In addition, there were moments where the enemies or bosses would bug out and would just sit there shooting nothing at you. The sad part is it doesn’t stop there, During a boss fight what do you do? Focus a lot so you don’t get it and what do you do when you beat a boss? Let out a sigh of relief and relax yourself. Well you cannot do that in this game because you have no invincibility during bosses so if you clutch out a boss with 1HP left and you beat the boss while it was shooting a bullet at you there is a chance you can literally get hit and still die. This actually happened to me but I didn’t even get a game over or anything my game was softlocked forcing me to restart the whole game. To top it off once you finish the game you unlock a hard mode which adds EVEN more issues to the game ranging from terrible FPS drops since enemies throw more at you and even more mid boss fights where bosses bug out and don’t even hit you. Sometimes you don’t even have to worry if a boss bugs out because there are multiple bosses where you can literally stand in a spot and not get hit at all lol. To top off this segment there are sensitivity issues with the mouse where the game will completely make your mouse fling around during certain attacks enemies use which is extremely annoying. - Bummer It's a bummer because my initial impressions were good but it quickly fell apart for me and I wanted to beat this game again on hard initially. But after all the issues and annoyances I couldn’t bring myself to deal with doing that task as it would bump the meter of annoyances up to 100%. I would say MAYBE give this game a go on a deep deep sale for a few bucks but otherwise I cannot recommend this game. It has the love and aesthetics behind it but none of the polish.

This game is a nightmare made playable. The music is disorienting and offputting in a way I find absolutely captivating. The graphics... well they're clearly cursed, but it's very much an aesthetic. The gameplay itself is fine. The platforming is very slippery but they don't ask you to do too much of it except in one key choke point that I found mildly enraging in the second level. The bullet hell is wildly overstated since the hitboxes of the bullets seems to be much smaller than their size would lead you to expect. The shooting is inoffensive, and that's about the best and worst I can say for it. You're much better off using a controller since the lag on an analog stick won't feel anywhere near as alien and frustrating as the the input speed reduction the game forces on players using a mouse. I like that Escape From Terror City offers branching pathways even when they're not necessarily made clear to the player, for example the train level where you can fall off the top of the train and continue through the cars. I assumed I was just dead but was delighted to find it was a completely alternate route. Upon completing the game it unlocked a hard mode I've yet to try but honestly I don't feel particularly drawn to it. For me this is a game you play as an experience, I came for the feeling of stepping into someone else's nightmare, not to experience one of my own. I don't know that this game really offers up enough of that to justify it's $10 asking price, but it's really hard to put a price on how you experience a piece of art and what it means to you. For me there just wasn't enough on offer here beyond the initial rush of diving into something supremely strange and alien. I'm still recommending it though, because I think it's an experience worth having, especially if you catch it on a sale.

也许这个摄像机视角正式这个游戏的独特之处(也是吸引我玩的地方) 缺点呢 也十分明显 比如某些场景我退到最后面抵到墙壁的时候 我的瞄准指针灵敏度会非常高(我感觉应该是瞄到后面墙壁了) 这游戏瞄准灵敏度本身就十分别扭 遇到这种情况更是强行夕阳红枪法 子弹从敌人身边打过； 有些场景就不一样了 退到后面墙壁后 主角的身体会直接靠近变大 相当于墙壁抵住视角了 视野会很受影响 这个非常影响游戏体验的问题可以说是这种视角的一种设定 可以理解 但是我为此很反感 因为我要躲弹幕 躲弹幕按后退也很正常吧 我也不能离得敌人枪口很近多弹幕吧(某些敌人枪口刚飞出的子弹很密集 后面慢慢散开才能找间隙躲掉 不后退还不行) 然后加上这别扭的瞄准灵敏度(调低了过慢 调高了又快 还锁定鼠标加速) 简直反人类 暂时先退款吧 折后33块钱玩这游戏 简直找罪受

Another really fantastic arcade action game from Renegade Sector that's a throwback to a breed of retro game game that's too cool to have actually existed.

Fun little game. Camera gets annoying in some places and it isn't very long, but overall it was a good experience and a decently unique take on the shmup genre. Some pretty fun patterns in there too.

Has some technical issues, wish it was more customizeable (gamepad controls, cursor move speed, etc) but the art and gamefeel of these arcade style games is always what's most important and the developer nailed it. Nice pulse-pounding feel whenever you shoot a boss and it flashes and freaks out. Love the train stage, wish more levels had the same cinematic feel.

While I think the indie gaming space needs more 'gallery shooters'. So games like Wild Guns and Bot Vice. This one on the other hand just feels so dreadful to play. Couple it with annoying music and sound effects.

It's like the second level of contra made into a whole game!