“it’s an acknowledgement that seeing the whole story, here, is more important than manipulating systems, and possibly a suggestion to other authors if they’re interested in there being a next generation.”

Way to undermine the driving force of the entire genre, which has always been manipulation of increasingly complex systems. Don’t ignore the value of games meant to be games.

Similarly, I think there were some points where the game faltered a bit. For one thing, I felt like the graphics in the first levels could have been a little truer to their inspiration. The fact that the game shoved lives and bombs down your throat led to some of the bullet and enemy patterns being a little sloppy.

In general, though, the game’s pretty good. The way that different playstyles lead to new skills and abilities encourages experimentation, and the little throwbacks like the inclusion of a slow-shot sub-weapon, graze effects, and a last level blatantly ripped o…uh, “subtly inspired by” Rez pleased and surprised me.

To anyone reading, I would very much recommend playing on harder difficulties than “standard”, however. One staple of the genre is sadly absent from “standard”: The thrill of fighting for your life against unbeatable odds, and succeeding after multiple failures.

er the pros got jumped hurrr

anyway yeah i infinity gene has newalone and zuntata and those wireframe graphics i dont even want to play this

poor thing

It’s skillfully designed for replay value. Depending on the manner of how you play the game or what secrets you find, your ship’s abilities change along with the power-ups. The basic ship shoots lasers, has a short range bomb power, and has a multiple lock-on homing laser power. Both the bomb and lock-on power can change drastically, and the basic laser shot can have extra shot types layered onto it.

In one game, my ship could generate a huge pair of swords to swing/scissor around while setting itself on fire and slowing down time. In another game, the ship summoned orbiting plasma, had a quick screen-clear ability, and could teleport while destroying everything in its path of movement. There’s apparently 5 variations of each weapon/ability type, some of which are harder to trigger than others. The huge blade, for example, is triggered by staying at the top half of the screen as much as possible.