Excubitor

[h1]See [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34168470-Trutek-Gaming/]curator page[/url] for more reviews. [/h1] Excubitor is a game that says it merges tower defense with with top down shooter, or even bullet hell. Is it successful mix? Not very. In Excubitor, most levels look like that: somewhere on small or medium sized map is placed Antares, your mothership. Your task is to defend it from drones - which take forms of various ships, mechs and other land units - using Hammerhead - your fighter and turrets. Turrets can be placed on few specific places on map. Sadly, they are mostly useless. What is wrong with them? First, there is no information about damage they deal, their range, firerate etc. Secondly, they are simply weak. While during early missions they can kill and heavily damage weaker enemies on their own, with later missions and higher difficulties, with more and stronger enemies, they become more and more useless. Theoretically they can be upgraded, but there is problem with resource used for that - electricity. You gain set amount of it before each mission, and can gain some more by building generators. Building one takes some voidshards - other source used for buying and upgrading weapons - and one of points for building turrets. Those generators don't give much energy, and cannot be upgraded further. So either you will have bunch of useless turrets, or few strong ones heavy cannon turrets at one point, and all others unprotected. On higher difficulties and some missions you will probably skip all damaging turrets together and will just built cryo and emp turrets, which will slow down enemies and disable their weapons, so you will have more time to shot them down with fighter. Fighter has quite large selection of weapons, which is nice. The weapons also feel and work different, which is additional plus. Sadly, just like for turrets, there are no stats for weapons. Each weapon can be upgraded three times, but is hard to say whether that "damage +♥♥♥♥♥%" upgrade is worth it or not without any stats. What is also bad is the fact you can take only two weapons. This completely removes point of having varied arsenal with different weapons having different roles and strengths - add to that lack of stats and in the end, you will probably just be flying around with newest weapon or the one that feels most comfortable to you. Also there are no maps in this game in which you are fighting against one type of enemies like in many tower defense games - so there is no planning like "lost of small enemies - I will take shotgun and flamethrower" or "few heavy enemies - I will take railgun and rocket launcher". Later on you will also get weapon that is much better than any other so all of this becomes meaningless. Anyway, it definitely should be changed - from what I have seen, in beta versions there was inventory of sorts, and I think it wasn't bad idea. Either you should have access to all weapons after buying them, but with limited ammo, or you should have ability to rearm at Antares during mission. You can also upgrade your fighter speed, shield, armour and weapons system. Of course you can probably guess that there again are no stats, so you don't know how much your speed or shield is boosted. Personally I wasn't feeling difference before and after upgrades. Only noteworthy things from them are berserk and repulsor skills. Honestly I would preferred if Antares could be upgraded instead of (or in addition to) Hammerhead. It would greatly benefited from stronger shields or having ability to recharge them. During missions, it's best to stay near one of the roads and to kill enemies as soon as possible. Theoretically you can also explore the map, but with each level there is less reason to do it. There are some destructible structures, and powerups and voidshards containers that can be captured. Problem with them is that value of voidshards they give doesn't scales with levels. So early they give quite big amount, but later, when upgrades cost tens of thousands, single 20 voidshards form destructibles is laughable and not worth flying to second end of map. On one level there is capturable additional generator, on another there is laser drill that continuously gives you voidshards. Sadly both appear only once in entire game. Why? Things like that actually make exploration fun and worthwhile. There also additional and secret objectives, but they don't change much expect giving additional voidshards, even though game tips say that doing them gives additional skill points. Enemy variety is rather mediocre. Enemies are varied, but number of their types is not that big. I felt few times jealous of their weapons - why I don't have shockwave that harms everything near? Why I don't have tractor beam that stops enemies? Graphic is quite nice, game is mostly stable, I had one or two random crashes, also on one level I could fly off the edge of map. Still the game is not worth 14,99€ - you can get better tower defense games or top down shooters for that price or cheaper, and compared to them this games doesn't really have replayability. Only thing there is is new game + which is redoing the same levels on much higher difficulty. It's also very unfun, relying on usage of skills and slowing turrets, in which single enemy can destroy Antares on his own with few attacks. Still maybe it could be worth to pick on high discount on sale if you want to try. Also the game heavily suggests addon or sequel - if it will happen, the game should be heavily remaked, or perhaps turned into just shooter or just tower defense game.

Excubitor is the debut game from Tesseract Interactive and is published by Kasedo Games. For those of you who may not know, Kasedo Games is the digital first division of Kalypso Media who are famous for among other things their fantastic Tropico franchise. Among their other titles are Imperium Romanum Gold Edition, Skydrift, Crookz – The Big Heist and many more. Therefore, before I even had an opportunity to sit down and play the game I had reason to be quietly confident that I would be presented with a potentially great new indie title. After playing for a sufficient number of hours to experience the game and to be in a position to review prior to release I have to admit that I was not disappointed. Fans of the tower defense and bullet hell genres will rejoice when they get their opportunity to play Excubitor. It manages to marry the combination of the two genres perfectly together to create an exciting title that is bursting at the seams with action but providing a significant chunk of strategy as well. [h1]PROS[/h1] [*]Tight gameplay: The action is fast and furious. Players will be roaming across the map building turrets while also using their Hammerhead to destroy enemy ships. Players will need to become highly proficient at tower design and controlling their craft in order to succeed. Both are equally pivotal to your success throughout the game. Players really cannot choose to forego one over the other given the enemies have a multitude of different pathways in which to attack you and your base and everything happens simultaneously across various points of the map. [*]Great boss battles: The boss battles are some of the best that I have come across in either the tower defense or bullet hell genres. Fast action and even quicker thinking are the rule of the game here. Each boss has different strengths and weaknesses so the player will have to discover what they are as soon as possible if they are to avoid an otherwise inevitable death. Each boss had me thinking hard and sitting at the edge of my seat as I discovered methods to defeat them. [*]Variety leading to increased replayability: If you thought that the only strategy occurred during the actual battles think again. There are important choices to be made between combat rounds. This includes the weapons and the modules that you choose to upgrade your ship with. Each of the 17 upgradeable weapons has strengths and weaknesses that can determine the outcome of an entire battle. As too will the choice of modules – whether you upgrade shields, armour, weapons, etc. The choice is yours but make the right ones. In game you have 9 turrets that like the weapons and modules of your ship unlock as the game progresses. There is a ton of variety in the game which allows you to try different strategies increasing the amount of replayability of the game. [*]Very challenging: The game has been expertly designed to make it challenging yet extremely fair. There are four difficulty levels as well as a NewGame+ mode which as expected is even more difficult. [*]Solid amount of content with room for expansion: Excubitor lends itself well to future DLC in the form of additional levels, weapons, turrets and more. The game comes packed with 4 different areas each containing a number of levels before you get to the end boss fight. Given the vast replayability on top of a good amount of content the value – content proposition gets a solid tick. [/list] [h1]CONS[/h1] [list] [*]Not very newbie friendly: The game starts off easy enough until you reach the boss fights. Then the difficulty spike is quite significant even at the most basic difficulty level. Veterans will rejoice in this fact yet newbies will be hard pressed to progress further into the game. They may find themselves frustrated at the complexity of the boss battles. [*]Sound: If there is something to be disappointed about in regards to the presentation of the game then it is in the sound department. I feel I am being petty here but there is no innovation in the sound department. [*]Basic UI: The user interface is a little on the basic side. I wasn’t expecting anything superlative and it gets the job done but again its nothing that we haven’t seen before. It doesn’t need to be and again I am certain that many may feel as though I am being petty. [/list] [h1]CONCLUSION[/h1] It’s very rare for me to put a significant number of hours into a game before it is released to the public. I’m not a huge fan of betas or early release games (not Early Access games that are purchasable by the general public). However, Steam credits me as having spent over 140 hours in the game as of writing. While there were periods where I was idle within the game I’ve definitely spent over a hundred hours in the game (and reset achievements twice so as to show the game off to friends as new). That speaks volumes to the amount of enjoyment that I have already received from Excubitor. For similar reviews, fantastic giveaways and our stellar community reviews please visit [url=http://www.steamified.com]Steamified[/url]. Feel free to join our community where you can join our Steamified Community Reviews program at our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Steamified]Steam group[/url].

[b]Short Version: [/b] Bullet hell and tower defense combine to form something both better and worse than either alone. As a standalone TD or shoot em up, this game wouldn't feel quite up to par - but the end result of hybridization plus plenty of upgrade-progression is surprisingly enjoyable. When two individually tasty items are combined, one of three things usually happens: [b]A. Peanut Butter + Chocolate:[/b] [i] Woooo, it's better than either alone! The man inside the magical moving-picture-box told me that, so it MUST be true![/i] [b]B. Bananas + Honey Mustard:[/b] [i] ....No. Just no.[/i] [b]C. Pizza + Pineapples:[/b] [i] Huh. I mean, the pineapple no longer tastes all fresh and juicy, the pizza loses some of its comforty garlicy goodness... and yet the end result somehow *works* in a strangely yummy way. Well, usually...unless you're one of those pizza / pineapple purists, of course.[/i] Given the above method of simplifying the universe, Excubitor is firmly in category C. The Tower Defense and Shoot-Em-Up parts of the game both seem to be lacking some of their usual appeal when considered individually, but still work strangely well together. [b] Excubitor as Tower Defense: [/b] The tower defense gameplay initially seems rather unimpressive, as your towers never feel like they're really doing what they should (which is stopping enemy waves in their tracks). The fixed points for building usually aren't strategically sound, the towers seem extremely weak, and even building towers can be a challenge when using a controller - (you have to target each tower build spot, with no close-enough lock on mechanism to aid you). However, this should all be taken with a grain of salt: the main point of tower-building in this game seems to be simply softening up foes juuust enough to take them down on your own. [b] Excubitor as Bullet Hell: [/b] The shoot-em-up section is also rather flimsy when considered on its own merits. As long as you continually strafe/circle opponents, your ship is never in much danger from the enemies (they're mostly just trying to destroy your larger base at the center of the map), and even dying only costs you a few seconds to respawn with no real penalty. You simply need to seek out clusters of enemies and destroy them before they have a chance to damage your central base too much. The exception to this lackadaisical shmup-action is the epic boss battles, which throw swarms of enemies at you and your base from all directions, while you try to not-die and protect your base at the same time, even as you discover the trick / weak-point of the boss which will allow you to win. These boss battles are spectacular and extremely challenging on even the 'normal' difficulty, and will be much more satisfying to those who love bullet-hell games. [b]Excubitor as a TD-Shmup Hybrid: [/b] Now this is where it gets interesting. As previously mentioned, the towers in Excubitor aren't very strong, but they are still extremely necessary to successfully complete a mission - you can't guard the multitude of enemy paths all on your own. Choosing the correct combination of towers thus becomes very important, as you want them to do at least a little damage to help thin the ranks, while also slowing/stunning ships as they approach so that your base doesn't take too much damage before you can swoop in. Of course, even building these towers isn't easy, because time spent flying to the build spots is time taken away from defending your base - and for some reason, the enemies don't feel like being good sports and giving you free time to build up your defenses to stomp them. Further complications arise with bonus objectives on the map to destroy and environmental hazards you can activate to take out a chunk of enemies and give you some necessary breathing room. And it all becomes doubly tricky when your home base feels like repositioning 'for reasons' and makes your old towers semi-useless. All of this makes managing your time betwixt shooting and building a rather entertaining challenge. [b]Miscellaneous[/b]: I do feel the need to point out a couple of negatives to the game that don't directly relate to the gameplay, but may influence your decision to purchase the game. Currently, the audio is terrible. Not merely mediocre, but full-out [b]'Is that really the game's audio, or did I accidentally stick a muffin in my ear again?'[/b] awful. The devs mentioned they're looking into it in the forums, so hopefully this will be fixed sooner or later - but for now you might as well put the game on mute. Another negative is the controls - the frantic shoot-em-up-gameplay calls for a controller, but said controller makes building towers and selecting menu items like upgrades needlessly complicated. The game could use a little more controller love, as well as a soft-lock when clicking on tower building areas. [b] Conclusion [/b]: This big ol' pineapple pizza of a game will probably be loved by some and hated by others. By combining TD and SHMUP game styles, Excubitor compromises some of the strengths of each of its roots - but it still makes for a surprisingly tasty hybrid concoction in the end. Despite the weaknesses in the game, it's a heck of a lot of fun and an innovative combination of genres. If you think you might like an unusual actiony-defense game with some challenging boss battles and quite a bit of upgradeable progression, then you should give Excubitor a shot! [quote]Received a free copy for testing/reviewing purposes. This review is part of the Steamified Community Review program. [/quote]

[b] Target Audience: [/b] [I] Experimental Players who wants something different in the tower defense/shoot em up genre (on sale) [/i] [u] Summary: [/u] A little bit different in the tower defense and shoot em up genres, Excubitor is a mixed bag of gameplay. On one hand, you've got a game that does try a little bit of something different, and when it really opens up the level design with some new and interesting concepts and challenges, it really can bring the fun factor. The game has its moments of fun, where you get a new weapon to play with and you try something completely new. But it's also weighed down by some repetition, and a lack of oompf in terms of gameplay: nothing really strongly stands out in the genres in terms of mechanics in the end. And the game left with a little bit of motion sickness at times. It's one of those games that will not make purists of the genre happy: there's little quirks here and there will all of its mechanics, and that's going to annoying some people, where the action of the shmup comes face to face with the slow strategy of tower defense. If you're a gamer that likes a game going off the beaten a path a bit, but still being in familiar territory, then this is worth a look. Otherwise, it's one of those titles that I'd wait for a sale on. [b]Video Review: [/b] https://youtu.be/ue6q0NbvsKs [u] Lists: [/u] [b]Positives:[/b] [list] [*] When the level design goes off the beaten path, it can be pretty fun, as you're dashing around, trying to juggle things before your big ship gets destroyed. [*] You'll have some fun, even in the repetition. It does have an addictive quality to it at times. [*] A good collection of weapons. Upgrades do make a reasonable difference, and the upgrades do make a reasonable difference. [*] Do like the strafing adding a bit of skill into the mix. [*] Controls seem a little bit different at first, and it does take some getting used to, but compared to other games out there, I did enjoy the challenge that it presented. But it's a hit or miss kind of option. [*] There's some nice details in the visuals. While they can clash at times, each art asset seems reasonable for what they are using here. [/list] [b]Negatives:[/b] [list] [*] It lacks oompf. This is in particular when attacking and hitting enemies and the sounds/effects that play, it's just doesn't have that spark. [*] Sometimes, it feels like the choices of turrets really doesn't matter. This has to do with the fact that you really can make up for any weaknesses of your turrets in the end. [*] Difficulty on normal seems a little low. If you're a veteran of either genre, play on hard. [*] Really needed some better sound design. Turning off the sound, and I really didn't feel any gameplay differences. [*] Dying needed consequences. It does take a while to spawn, but it didn't cause that many problems. [*] This may be unique to me, so keep that in mind. But while playing, the 360 movement plus the visuals ended up making me a little bit motion sick. [/list] [b] If you want more reviews/information regarding games I've reviewed, visit my curator. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6861768/]Dragnix Curator [/url][/b]

[h1]Gameplay[/h1] Bei Excubitor steuert man ein kleines Raumschiff in einer Art TopDown Ansicht und muss verschiedene Aufgaben erfüllen. Ziehl ist es in den meisten missionen ein großes Schiff zu verteidigen und je nach Mission kommen weitere Aufgaben hinzu wie z.B bestimmte Objekte/Gebäude zu aktivieren oder weitere Verteidigungsobjekte zu verteidigen. Das Spiel ist sehr Actionreich und ist ein Mix aus Action TopDown Weltraum Shooter und Tower Defense. Gesamt gibt es 4 Planeten mit je 4 Missionen wobei die letzte Mission immer ein Bossgegner ist. Auf der Missionskarte findet man evrschiedene Baupunkte auf welchen man wie in Tower Defense Spielen verteidigungstürme bauen kann welche einem im Level helfen zu überleben, jedoch sind diese nicht stark genug das Level alleine zu bestreiten und man muss aktiv in den Kampf eingreifen. Nach jeder Mission bekommt man Upgradepunkte mit denen man sein Raumschiff verbessern kann indem man z.B das Waffensystem verstärkt, die Schilde, die Rüstung oder das Antriebssystem. Ausserdem erhält man während dem Spielen eines Levels Energie welche man nutzen kann um bessere Waffen zu kaufen und diese wiederum zu verbessern, welche jedoch auch benötigt werden um die Verteidigungstürme zu bauen. [h1]Schwierigkeitsgrad[/h1] Der Schwierigkeitsgrad ist auch auf normal schon hoch angesetzt und ist eher für erfahrene Spieler geeignet, jedoch kommen auch Casual Gamer nach einiger Zeit zurecht, müssen vermutlich aber einige Missionen mehrfach Spielen bis sie sie schaffen. [h1]Bosskämpfe[/h1] Die Bosskämpfe sind sehr interessant gemacht. Keinen der Bosse kann mit reiner Waffenkraft besiegen, bei jedem muss man vorher die Schwachstellen analysieren und rausfinden wie er überhaupt besiegt werden kann. Ob es bestimmte wunde Puntke sind, Schilde die erst abgeschalten werden müssen oder man bestimmte Waffensysteme der Karte braucht. Jeder Boss ist einzigartig und muss auf eine andere Weise erledigt werden. [h1]Positives[/h1] - Actionreich - Viele Turmarten - Viele Upgrademöglichkeiten des Schiffes durch Punkte oder verschiedene Waffentypen - 16 Level - innovative Bosskämpfe - Schöne grafik [h1]Neutral[/h1] - Steam Sammelkarten - Steam Achievements - Bestenlisten - Controllerunterstützung [h1]Negatives[/h1] - Preis für eine ca 10h Spielzeit fürs erste mal auf normal durchspielen doch hoch angesetzt - Schwierigkeitsstufe nicht Casual geeignet - Manchmal etwas unübersichtlich da es keine Anzeige gibt wie weit die aktuelle Welle ist und es Wellen gibt die 1 min dauern oder auch welche die 10 min dauern und man dadurch nie weiss wann endlich die nächste Welle startet und man die aktuelle überlebt hat [h1]Fazit[/h1] Ein Actionreicher schneller TopDown Weltraumshooter/Tower Defense Mix der sich wirklich zeigen kann. Wer Spaß daran hat Raumschiffmassen taktisch mit Turm und Raumschiff im Weltraum zu bekämpfen sollte dieses Spiel nicht verpassen. Wenn euch diese Review gefallen hat, dann folgt unserem Reviewprogramm http://steamcommunity.com/groups/-German_Gamer_Community-

Hello everybody, Shaun Meyers from Universal Gaming Reviews here to bring you a short summary from our review for Excubitor by Tesseract Interactive and Kasedo Games. If you'd like to read our full review for the game, you can find it here: https://www.universalgamingreviews.com/ Excubitor is a very unique combination of a bullet hell game and a tower defense game and at first glance you might be like me and think, "That can't possibly work well together" but the suprirising part is, it does. The game puts you in control of a small fighter ship known as the Hammerhead. Using your ship to fly around the map you'll be abe to fight off incoming waves of enemy ships using deployable turrets. During missions you'll also need to protect a ship called Antares. If this ship is destroyed it's game over. The game features 17 weapons in total and each of them has 3 upgrades for you to purchase in the armory. There are also a wide range of turrets available for you to construct as well. There are also points on the map that you'll be able to interact with that will often aid you in the game as well. These include factories that will mine resources, fans that will destroy any incoming enemies and many others to discover. The game's control felt very fluid and the game was equally action packed. The game is also quite beautiful to look at as well. I imagine the game won't be for everyone but it's definitely a fun (and challenging) game that will no doubt please fans of bullet hell games and tower defense games. We decided to give the game 3.6 stars out of 5 in our review and since we liked the game we'll be giving it a recommendation here on Steam as well. We also recorded a gameplay video which you can find below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLtCnSuK1O0

Lacks the diversity of mechanics that is essential to the tower defense genre. Only three upgrade levels per weapon, and only two weapon slots leaves the player with a feeling of disconnection from excitement. Towers can only be placed in specific locations, often lacking strategic value and drawing out excessive effort for almost no payout.

I was intrigued by the concept of this game, but ultimately found it repetitive and very difficult even on the normal setting. It didn't really bring anything NEW to the table. I returned it for a refund.

Excubitor seems to be a fusion of Steel Storm and Defense Grid. Sadly, the tower defense part is very shallow, and one you will need to place and forget early in most missions. Unfortunately for the other part, the game has not learned from the problems Steel Storm had, and quickly becomes a frustrating dash between objectives and your mother ship trying to cover for your inadequate turret defense. Wile upgrading turrets would seem to be the answer, it becomes obvious by the first boss fight that it won’t work. The turrets are sparse screen not a wall, and they end up ineffective. You can guard the ship or attack the boss, not both. BTW the boss has an instant death attack and hiding is your only option...except that seems to glitch out and not work later in the fight. It looked like a fun time, and started out as one. But I don't have time for this kind of frustration. Your call if you want to play this game but I'm moving on.

Wow, a great blend of classical shmup and tower defence. It's quite hard though, so it takes some effort. Amazing such a game was produced by a small team of devs, imagine what they could do with AAA money behind them :)