EDIT: As of March 21st, all issues with the game have been cleared up, and I will give a full review of the game. The art assets have been changed over so they are not anyone elses, and launching issues with the game have been resolved. With all this said, I now feel I can give a full (and positive) review of the game, which I actually enjoy.
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Generic Space Shooter is pretty much like the name says, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a single screen shooter much like in the vein of Geometry Wars, with its own twists being the type of upgrades it has, the unlockable ships, and the unique (from what I've seen) control scheme. The game controls entirely with the mouse, with left click being shoot, and right click being the ship's thrusters. This can create a sort of frantic back and forth with the mouse, especially when fighting bosses that get progressively faster and faster the weaker they get, so I'm not entirely sure if I like it more vs a traditional WASD move, mouse aim to shoot. It definitely makes kiting a very different experience.
Powerups are varied, and I have a mixed feeling on how a few of them work.
Fast shots (orange) let you shoot your standard shot very rapidly. One of the best upgrades imo, since in shooters spamming the screen with your bullets as much aspossible is how you "not-die".
Quick shots (yellow) shoot your normal rate, but the projectile speed is much faster. This is useful for long range sniping, but otherwise seemed a fairly minor upgrade to me especially compared to some others.
Wavey (sic) shots (teal) make your shoots move wild and erratically, making aiming impossible and forcing you to just fire a cloud of shots. This can be useful, it will shoot down enemy projectiles, but I never really felt happy to get a Wavey Shot over say a shield or a Fast Shot.
Piercing Shots (red) lower your rate of fire a bit, but make your shots pierce your enemies. This is very useful on bigger enemies, since the piercing shot seems to damage on a per frame basis, so one shot will pretty much rip big enemies to pieces.
Shield (blue) Gives you a shield that stops shots, and also lets you ram into enemies to destroy them. Very useful since you can grab it and power into a big crowd. Doesn't seem to damage bosses? I'm not sure, I couldn't tell.
Bullet Trail (purple) makes you fire extremely rapidly, but your shots stay in place unless an enemy gets very close to them, then it home in and hits them. This lets you leave a trail or trail or minefield of shots behind you, and is extremely useful for the bosses that like you chase you. As a bonus, when the powerup wears off, every shot fires and gains momentum at the same time, allowing you to effectively shotgun people. Also very useful for bosses: you can lay a hyperdense field of shots, and watch them all crash into the boss simultaneously for huge damage. Fun powerup.
Ammo (green) doesn't give you a boost, but just adds ammunition to your basic weapon. I think this is an odd choice in the genre, and I feel like adding an ammo count to your basic weapon in a space shooter doesn't actually add anything. I would like it if Ammo was changed into say, a spread shot, or a rear firing shot, or something, and the concept of ammo just removed from the game. You don't get point bonuses for precision or not missing, so it's just an artificial limitation. Powerup shots don't consume ammo, so picking up ammo doesn't feel fun or exciting, it feels like a wasted powerup. Now, if powerup shots had ammo, and picking up Ammo refilled your ammo for that powerup ,that would be cool, but that would be more work, being able to swap between ammo types, etc, and it's understandable if that's work the dev doesn't want to do - the current system is fine, I just think it'd be better without ammo for the default shot.
The game works on a timed level system, and every so often the game levels up, making all enemies worth more points, and making new and more enemy types appear. Every so often, bosses and 'enemy fleets' will appea,r which ar ehuge clusters of normal ships. Bosses generally follow a pattern of getting faster and shooting more often the lower they get on life, to the point where it can be difficult to continue to move and still get shots in without having Fast Shots, Shields or Bullet Trails. The downside of this timed system is the very early game can come off as very slow - it often takes me 2 levels before I get enemies that actually shoot back at me and don't just slowly fly towards me and ie in one shot. Once the game gets rolling though, it doesn't slow down.
As you play the game, you unlock new ships, most of which focus on and upgrade one particular powerup type, making it last longer, show up more often, etc. I don't have all the ships unlocked yet, so I don't know what all abilities exist yet, but it's cool that you can focus on a particular powerup you enjoy the most. I'm curious as to what the Ammo powerrup ships to, since I don't have those ships yet.
The game is fun, and I've definitely paid more for lunch than I paid for this game, so you can't beat that. I would happily recommend it to anyone looking for a quick fix or a game to be able to play at lunch, before work, or any sort of short burst playing.
