I'm going to write one review for three games - Afterburn, Top Dog, and Furious Angels - and copy+paste this review into each one. Why? Because they're all made by the same developer and they all have the same 'basic' idea, and because if you own one, you genuinely should probably just own all three. If you enjoy one, you're probably going to love all three (the only exception might be those that like Top Dog and Afterburn could POSSIBLY not like Furious Angels, and vice versa. I like all three, but the play style on Furious Angels is a little different).
So what's the idea? A regularly resetting global leaderboard. A shot at a high score. Each cycle you do your best to become 'top dog' on the global leaderboard. When the cycle ends, you can see how you did... and take another shot in the new cycle at landing that top spot on the leaderboard. You'd think that that regular reset would make the game LESS appealing - but it has actually had the opposite effect with me. We all know that feeling of buying a new game and thinking to yourself, oh, cool, a global leaderboard! I can see how my playing stacks up against everyone else in the world! So you start playing and get a ten thousand points!!! ...only to discover that Bob from Finland hit a high score four years ago of sixteen billion points. You'll NEVER beat that. There's almost no point in trying. With the regular reset, you're always kept on your toes... and you've always got at least a SHOT. You've always got that chance to have those bragging rights for a day.
So what are they? Basically wave shooters. You go out, fight wave after wave of bad guys, and try to rack up scores. You do certain things for bonus points. Pretty simple.
Each of the games is ultra simplistic. In Afterburn, pretty much all you do is point where you want to go, and you have a 'shoot' button and a 'boost' button. Top Dog is a lot like this except that you've also got a 'lock on target' button and some weird little bottom-boost capability. Oh, and missiles. Furious Angels is essentially twin stick - one stick to move, one stick to point guns. ULTRA... ULTRA simplistic.
But if it sounds easy, it's not. These games are not forgiving at all. You can go from doing great, to being shot right out of the sky abruptly and with no fanfare, in a heartbeat. You'll have full armor, blazing through the skies, tearing through enemies, wreaking absolute havoc, and suddenly you're dead. You're shown your score and how it stacks up against others, and then you either quit or try again.
A brief outlook:
Afterburn is the ultra simple one: joystick to turn, a button to boost, and a button to shoot. Three different planes to choose from, each with their own stats, and three different weapons to choose from, each of which functions slightly differently. You fly out and try to make it through the waves, which get increasingly more difficult but which give increasingly better chances for higher scores. The last mission (of 6) is just randomly next level - you're not going to beat it easily unless you've got a lot of practice in. It took me about a million tries to beat that last one.
Top Dog is kind of like a roguelike of Afterburn. You've got a little more to control here - direction, that 'bottom' booster (on the bottom of the craft, which changes the way you fly a little).. you've got missiles and a gun... and a button you can use to select/lock on to a target. Too, as you clear each wave, you can pick an upgrade to your craft - increased agility, better guns, more powerful missiles, or just whatever you end up choosing. So unlike Afterburn, where you have the same craft from start to finish, in Top Dog as you go through the levels your aircraft will be getting better and better. You can pick upgrades that suit your play style and try to make it through the missions.
Furious Angels, the twin stick shooter, is a lot of fun, but not one I play as much as the others. It becomes kind of a bullet hell, with missiles and lasers and everything else flying all around making it impossible to get anything done. One joystick to control direction, the other to point guns - and if you can survive long enough, your craft starts upgrading itself to make itself more powerful. You'll finally get up to being a cool tank thing, and then get shot enough that you explode out into a fighter yet again.. and just continue to keep trying to survive. "Furious" is an appropriate title choice. It gets intense.
So what's my take on them, then? For such small games, I really think the graphics are nice. It's not quite 'Ace Combat' level graphics, to be sure, but they look just fine and are not too distracting. There's no frills on these games - if I'm remembering right, Furious Angels has a little bit of a soundtrack, and I don't think the other two do. There's no real persistent upgrading (even on Top Dog, which has roguelike progression... when you die, those upgrades are gone). There aren't a ton of complicated things going on - these games are all about short bouts of furious combat with no bells and whistles. You go out, you try to survive, you try to do well, and you see if you can land on the daily leaderboard. Period. Nothing more, nothing less.
That's part of what keeps me coming back to these games, though - there's no 2-minute intro screens, there's no extended loading wait times, there's not a bunch of this and a bunch of that. These games are TAILOR-MADE for short-burst playing. If you've got a break at work or something, you can hop into one of these three, play as long or short as you'd like, and get back to what you're doing. There is no extended this or that, so it's PERFECT for those little ten-minute "I need something to do" periods. I often find myself during work thinking, "Ugh, I need ten minutes to unwind a little," and just firing up one of these three games.
Do I have a favorite? ...Weirdly enough, not really!!!! You'd think one would really 'stand out' from the others, but it's really weird - each one has their own attraction for me. I appreciate the simple but furious playstyle of Afterburn... the more in-depth and 'progress'-oriented playstyle of Top Dog... and the insane chaos (and achievement-hunting) of Furious Angels. EACH of them in their own way has a special little draw - and this is why I say, if you own one, you may as well own all three.
Worth full price? Eh, I think so. I believe I got them on sale but for under ten bucks I think they're priced fairly, especially for how much fun I have pulled out of them.
So I would encourage everyone to check out all three. They're a lot of fun and I keep coming back to try to get on that daily leaderboard. Come try to beat me!
