From the makers of Super Stardust HD comes Resogun. This PlayStation 4 launch title is clearly building off the foundation of its spiritual predecessor and Geometry Wars, but that’s not a bad thing. Featuring a distinctive art style and gameplay that is a bit more involved than your traditional dual-stick shooter, Resogun makes a great first impression.
While Super Stardust HD was heavily influenced by overhead shooters such as Asteroids and Robotron: 2084, Housemarque’s latest is their take on modernizing Defender. From a side-scrolling perspective, you pilot a spaceship along a cylindrical plane, shooting baddies in hopes of earning a high score and saving the universe. However, gunning down enemies isn’t the only item on your agenda. There are a number of humans that you can save from death as you zoom along. Successfully saving a human will earn you bonuses of all sorts, so it’s in your best interest to save as many as you can. Each level also ends with a gigantic boss that you’ll have to pour a ton of bullets into before it ultimately bursts into thousands of tiny cubes.
The odds never seem to be in your favour, but you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve. For one, you have a choice between three different ships to pilot. Each has its own strengths, weaknesses and Like Geometry Wars, you have access to a short supply of screen-clearing bombs. In short bursts, you can whiz across the screen with your boosters, which also make you temporarily invincible as you zip by. The coolest tool in your arsenal is the overdrive beam, which unleashes a thick blast of death from your cannon.
Having those extra layers of depth go a long way towards making this feel more substantial than a standard dual-stick shooter. On top of that, you can play the whole thing in online co-op, which works really well. During my online sessions, it did hitch a little bit here and there, but never in a way that was detrimental to the action.
Resogun comes out swinging and will likely keep me engaged for many hours to come. While the dual-stick shooter formula has been done to death since Geometry Wars, this does just enough to make it feel fresh and more nuanced than those before it. Whether you get it for free as part of PlayStation Plus or purchase it after the promotion expires, this is an easy one to recommend playing on your shiny new console.
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