Project AETHER: First Contact

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6142328/][b]Like this Review? Follow The Cpt Froggy Club Curator Page for plenty more![/b][/url][/quote] Project Aether: First Contact: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As the quest for space exploration become a reality, we humans become enthusiastic to the idea of discovering and walking on new planets, as well as coming across new types of living organisms. This euphoria dies down rather sharply when one of our chief scientists mentioned that we might encounter unknown and hostile civilizations during our space endeavours. Unanimously, we decide to build a mech that can be deployed quickly on planet orbits or surfaces. Just in time, our first prototype is ready for testing as we lose all radio contact with the rest of our planets. Ready to launch. . . Project Aether – First Contact! Project Aether: First Contact is a twin-stick shooter game developed and self-published by Sleepy Spider Studios on the 25th of February 2020 on Steam. The game consists of a campaign with 9 missions, 4 levels of difficulty, an excellent tutorial, and 3 modes: Trials, Survival, Boss Run. As you start the campaign, your mech will have a generic loadout with a primary, secondary and an energy blade (melee) for the weapons, as well as a dash type and a Power EMP. As you progress through the levels, you’ll unlock new weapons, dash types and Power EMP’s. The missions will take around 8 to 20 minutes on average on the normal level of difficulty. With that said, you’ll probably die more than once from the third mission onwards. But don’t worry, you’ll have 3 continues up your sleeve on normal difficulty; you’ll only have one continue on the hard level of difficulty, with tougher enemies to deal with. Each mission will have a certain number of waves of enemies to eliminate and you’ll be graded from S to D depending on how many opponents you destroyed along with how many hits you took. As you move on from wave to wave, the variety of enemies increases quickly, and soon you’ll face spaceships that shoot different types of projectiles (including lasers) and drop mines, while other enemy spaceships will fly directly at your mech to pierce its hull. It’s just mayhem and super fun! The trick is to make sure to use your dash at the right time to avoid being hit; simple but not easy to achieve. If you ‘ve taken too many hits, your hull gauge will turn red; you’ll have 5 repair kits to use on your first life but fewer on your second or third life or continue. Mind you, I stuffed it up more than once using repair kits and lost many lives far too early. There are leader boards for each of the levels in the campaign, trails, survival and Boss Run. So, if you are competitive and want to record the best score on each of the modes of play, learn to avoid projectiles very quickly. The maximum combo points are 3, and you start on 1. For each enemy you destroy, the combo will increase by 0.1, so you’ll need to kill 30 opponents to reach the maximum combo. And let me tell you, it’s an achievement in itself if you manage to do so. But if you’re like me, and keep taking on bullets and lasers from left, right and centre, you’ll be back to combo 1 rather often. The game is well made; the controls are fluid and the story and the voice over are good, as are the graphics. The campaign might be slightly on the short side, but with the trials, survival and Boss runs modes, this game has good replayability without a doubt. The only issue I had was to run the game the first time; my anti-virus didn’t like a file name, but after adjusting my settings, everything was fine. I really enjoyed the game! Positives: ~~~~~~~~ + Good graphics + Campaign, trials, survival and Boss runs modes + 4 levels of difficulty + Easy to play, challenging and good replayability + Multiple Leader boards + Achievements Negatives: ~~~~~~~~ - No trading cards as yet - Campaign on the short side Control the prototype mech, Project Aether, and defeat an unknown Alien force. A fun twin-stick shooter to own! 7/10 Key provided by the developer/publisher for review purposes. Any opinions expressed are entirely my own! [quote][url=https://www.zeepond.com/reviews][b]READ EPIC REVIEWS FROM “THE CPT FROGGY” AND MATES, UP NOW ON ZEEPOND, THE HOME OF THE ALMIGHTY FROG![/b][/url] [url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZchpsMdA2hDYJKZgOPdo_w?view_as=subscriber][b]SUBSCRIBE TO THE CPT FROGGY YOUTUBE CHANNEL[/b][/url][/quote]

[h1] <-- Review written for [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35180752/] 3 Point Play [/url] --> [/h1] I've decided to go out of the way to get this review done before I'd keep playing because even with 30 mins of playtime, I already fell in love with this game. While I'm not a massive bullet-hell fan, Project AETHER is just so appealing that I ended up loving it just a few minutes after booting it up. The controls are really well thought, since you use both sticks to move and shoot, and the bumpers to do pretty much everything else, while the XYBA buttons are there to fill on the other non-essential functions (or those that you don't have to do all the time, such as using a repair kit or reloading your weapons) The story so far is really compelling, I'm feeling a really strong Ace Combat vibe from it, but I'm not really sure why, that, of course, is nothing but a good thing. The graphics are pretty damn gorgeous for a bullet hell game, which usually feature some pretty visuals but they never take the spotlight. My only complain, however, would be about the voice acting, which I'm not so sure about, but even then, it's pretty serviceable. Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that the game comes with a Codex in the Extras section in the main menu, a little something that I happen to really enjoy. Everytime you defeat an enemy, the Codex is updated with interesting info about the aliens you're facing. Truly a labor of love, it's those details that make a game worth playing, in my opinion. An easy 9/10 for me!

《Project AETHER First Contact》是一款机甲STG，日系画风头像，全程英语配音，一言以蔽之就是酷炫。 游戏是键鼠控制的，WASD移动E切武器Q吃血药空格斩杀，鼠标瞄准左键开火右键近战。武器连续使用会过热，敌人被连击后可以按空格近距离处决，处决效果也可以修改，例如消灭圈内所有敌人或者提升攻击或者生成盾牌，机甲还可以切换涂装，涂装通过成就解锁。 剧情简而言之就是[spoiler]有天女主正训练呢，突然外星人飞船侵攻了，卫星都被打失联了，女主打了半天也不知道对面是啥，之后发现是AI控制的，后面一分析发现这些飞船都两百万年历史了，最后友军创造出一个敌方薄弱区让女主斩首了对面的旗舰[spoiler]虽然他们其实只是在背景里作为字面意义上的背景什么都没做，连敌人都攻击不到他们，只有他们老大会被剧情杀[/spoiler]；之后女主他们打算破坏对面的生产工厂却发现这玩意儿在整个月球地下，最后女主孤军深入切了对面工厂能源，然后月球爆炸了……再然后敌人所有飞船飞回太阳系边缘的母星，女主乘胜追击登陆对面行星，发现那里已经濒临崩溃，生物也已经灭绝，人类只是在和古文明的遗产战斗，最后和仿造了女主机甲的主脑一对一决斗并取胜，停止了所有敌机的运转。[/spoiler] 随着剧情的推进有武器可解锁（带剧情，要从选关界面按loadout才会解锁）。后期一关大概十多波敌人，打一局十分钟左右，有的关卡会有多个BOSS战。除了战役模式，也有教程、生存模式和bossrush。不过bossrush只有关卡最终boss没有中boss。 难度不高，但是动作和模型精细流畅，打起来特效非常酷炫，最终战和主脑的机甲决斗也非常浪漫，女主TESS（Theresa Martins）很帅气，声音也好听，还是很值得一玩的。 [quote]欢迎关注我们的鉴赏家:[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35402982/]走心评测[/url] ←遵从内心，写出真实感受 欢迎加入我们Steam组:[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ZXPC]走心评测[/url]←点击加入，一起探索游戏的乐趣

[h1] Lost on Steam EP. 43 [/h1] This is one of the 3 featured games in the weekly Sunday show. An unboxing for video games! You can watch the highlights of this game and the two others featured this week here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns_9t3haxEo [b] [Thoughts and First Impressions] [/b] I want to make sure everyone understands this right away: The game starts SLOW. The first 2 levels or so are a pretty slow ramp up to where the game inevitably goes, which is amazing. I was really turned off initially because it was the same enemy type firing the same 1 slow projectile at me through the entire first level and a half. Then there is a fairly sudden shift towards the end of the second level where the difficulty kicks up to a REALLY enjoyable place. That aside, I think the game does a lot well. It's forgiving and punishing at the same time. You can use continues if you are having a super rough time of it, but also you're going to die. A lot. Enemies will start SWEEPING lasers across the screen and if you aren't ready with that millisecond dodge then you're going to be taking a chunk of damage. Here is where this game really shines though: The magnetic pulse mechanic. As you shoot or damage an enemy they will eventually get a circle that appears around them. If you pilot your mech into that circle and press SPACEBAR then the enemy will detonate and your mech sends out a little pulse. This mechanic is SO COOL and really gives way to some interesting game strats that I haven't seen before. If you have other enemies that are close enough you can even chain blow up a number of enemies at the same time. It's now a risk vs reward system for how close you're willing to get to some of these enemies. tl;dr - Game is great although a bit slow in the beginning. The pulse mechanic is unique and creates new and interesting bullet hell strategies. Join the Curator group for more reviews and "unboxing" of unknown games! https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34634494/

I haven't played many twin stick shooters in my life, but Project AETHER is a great place to dive in. Very polished and enjoyable. Playing NieR: Automata recently and seeing the twin-stick shooter bullet hell style sections in that game made me want to play a more fleshed out version of that kind of thing, and Project AETHER scratched that itch. For being a seemingly limited game with its brief (albeit well-voiced and polished) campaign, there is a lot of bonus content, unlockables, playstyles and an immense skill ceiling. I really do love this game. My only real criticism/feedback is that I wish there was more visual feedback when i-frames were active during the dash, especially the default basic one that I prefer using.

увидел в описании, что игра твин-стик. подключил геймпад. запустил игру. а игра не поддерживает мой геймпад!!! она вобще по ходу геймпады не поддерживает! зачем обманывать игроков? где русский язык? тяжело перевести хотя бы текст? где система перков, апгрейдов, хоть чего нибудь? вы всю игру предлагаете проходить с двумя видами пушек и мечом? и хотите за это 254 рубля? серьезно? по-моему разрабы этой игры ленивые жадины https://youtu.be/CrtP20l1_dg

[h1]A twin-stick shooter that doesn't differ from the crowd[/h1] [b]Overview[/b] Project AETHER: First Contact is a twin-stick shooter set in space, where the player controls a mech suit in order to defend the human race from an alien invasion. The game is divided into nine different stages, with each stage having a final boss and the possibility to play it at different difficulties to earn higher scores (and achievements). The game, as we'll see, doesn't have any major problems, but also nothing to make it different from the multitude of twin-stick shooter games out there. [b]Shotgun or railgun?[/b] Before each mission, the mech can be customized with a range of weapons and abilities, as long as they have already been unlocked. These weapons are pretty standard for the kind of game: rifle, shotgun, railgun and so on... While the game doesn't propose anything too fancy, it allows us to take two weapons with us in each level, pretty much defining the way we are going to play that level: a railgun or an assault rifle allow you to play safer, longer distances, while a shotgun is more reckless but also much more powerful in terms of destruction. The mech suit also has a special ability: this comes from the fact that shooting our opponents creates a magnetic field around them, which can be used at our advantage by overloading it, destroying the enemy ship and granting an additional effect corresponding to the chosen ability. The last ability changes the dash, which allows us to pass through bullets unarmed: these are smaller variations, but can be interesting for different playstiles on different loadouts. A different kind of weapons is the energy blade, which allows the suit to make melee attacks, which in turn can push enemies around the screen, but usually falls short on usefulness due to the very high probability of getting hit by the bullets the enemy we're attacking could shoot. [b]Standard issue[/b] Apart from the initial loadout, the game is just a standard-issue twin-stick shooter set in space (or planetary low orbit). All levels follow the same pattern: a tons of the same enemy ships for the 90% of the level, followed by a final stage boss. Talking of enemies, there is a good variety of them, as they range from basic-shooting ships to more advanced dashing-melee or laser ones, with a good amount of tougher, medium-size enemies. Bosses, as I already said, always appear at the end of the level. These are special and (kind of!) bigger enemy ships with special attack and movement capabilities. Each final boss uses a particular fighting scheme, so luckily there's a good differentiation between them. At normal difficulty, I personally found the bosses less challenging than the rest of the level, especially after the introduction of the "red ships", a special kind of enemy which is basically a tougher basic ship with a special kind of attack. [b]Story and technicalities[/b] The game features a story under the form of dialogues between the mech pilot and other figures at the base. These dialogues are pretty simple and highlight pretty cliche characters on a pretty uninteresting story, which was provided only as a glue between the different mission. Basically, if the game had only the levels without any kind of writing, my evaluation wouldn't change. Under the technical side, the game features clean graphics and good optimization, so the 60 fps threshold was maintained all time even when the screen was filled by bullets and enemies. While graphics can be defined as clean, though, the graphical style is rather boring and uninteresting: enemies, bosses and environment look very similar to those of the crowd of similar games and won't surely be remembered after some time has passed. [b]Verdict[/b] Project AETHER: First Contact isn't a bad game, but doesn't break any new ground and has no real defining features. With a main story lasting a little more than 2-3 hours and the possibility to play some challenges, we are in "save for later" territory here, because I can't fully recommend a game where there are other better options out there for a very similar price. [quote]Visit SaveOrQuit.com for detailed game reviews, posted daily![/quote]

I’ve never played a twin stick shooter before, but this one has been a blast! The movement is smooth, and combat is fast paced and engaging. Definitely worth a try!

**As per the agreement: I did get a free copy of Project AETHER for review purposes.** As someone who usually tends to avoid the twin shooter, I have to say that I was rather impressed with Project AETHER. It's a short game, but one with lots of replayability and also a fair difficulty selection if you are new to the genre or want to challenge yourself. For the asking price, it is more than fair and definitely would recommend Project AETHER to anyone who is a fan of the genre. Will be posting a full review of the game soon, but as far as initial thoughts go, my compliments to the creators and thank you for a lovely game. ^__^

Tight controls, satisfying combat (using the EMP blast to chain explosions is particularly fun) and good visuals make Project AETHER one of the better bullet hell games I've played. Especially for newcomers to the genre!