Hey guys and gals! I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas! I’ve played quite a bit of RESOGUN over the past year and feel like I’m at the point where I can now review it. RESOGUN is a fast paced, voxel-based (Yeah, I had to look this one up!) arcade style, side-scrolling shooter that was a launch title for the Playstation 4. It is developed by Housemarque and is published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for Playstation. According to some of the definitions I found online, “A voxel represents a value on a regular grid in three-dimensional space. Voxel is a combination of ‘volume’ and ‘pixel’ where pixel is a combination of ‘picture’ and ‘element’. As with pixels in a bitmap, voxels themselves do not typically have their position (their coordinates) explicitly encoded along with their values. Instead, the position of a voxel is inferred based upon its position relative to other voxels (i.e., its position in the data structure that makes up a single volumetric image)”. So basically for RESOGUN, the game is rendered to a three dimensional space to side-scroll while you play on a cylindrical coordinate. Science!
RESOGUN is graphically beautiful and has some of the best in-game music I’ve heard for a video game. The music fits quite well because it has fast-paced tones and sounds, just like the gameplay being fast. The game is heavily influenced by the arcade games Defender and Datastorm, which were released in 1981 and 1989 respectively. Earlier this year, the game’s first DLC was released and is known as RESOGUN: Heroes. Heroes features a new game world, two new game modes, and new trophies to collect.
Setting
In RESOGUN, players take control of space ships to battle enemies and must rescue trapped humans in side-scrolling worlds. Enemies spawn in waves, or as known in the game, in phases. At the end of the final phase on each cylindrical, side-scrolling world, a boss spawns for the player to fight. The worlds or levels in the game are known as Acis, Ceres, Decima, Febris, and Mefitis. The world in RESOGUN: Heroes is known as Avernus.
Gameplay
The gameplay is quite fast-paced and could be rage inducing. I would say that a casual gamer might be able to pick this game up and play with no issue, but that might end when they get to the second world (depending on the difficulty). RESOGUN is a pretty challenging game! Once all of the players’ lives are gone, the player must restart from the beginning – there are no checkpoints. Players must destroy all enemies and the final boss on each game world to achieve victory. In order to gain more points, players can pick up and save the humans when they are released from their prisons. The player has the option to choose one of the three ships available to battle the enemy before each world begins. These three ships are called Nemesis, Ferox, and Phobos. Upgrades and powerups are available for the player’s ship as the game progresses for each world.
The two game modes in RESOGUN are Single Level and Arcade. In Single Level mode, the player selects one world and attempts to complete that level for one high score. In Arcade Mode, the player continues to the next world after each successful completion. The game’s difficulties are Rookie, Experienced, Veteran, Master, and Hero. I had trouble even on the Experienced difficulty, as each world gets more challenging than the last. The Rookie difficulty is pretty hard at times and the player must be on guard and actively destroying targets.
The Presentation
Like I mentioned above, RESOGUN is graphically beautiful in its three dimensional cylindrical space. Also, each world has some pretty badass in-game music to keep you on the edge of your seat and to keep your blood pumping. The overall feel of the game is really nice because it plays like an old school, casual arcade game that you would of found back in the 1980’s. With that being said, the game is indeed quite challenging and might not be for everyone. Don’t let that discourage you though! Keep practicing on different difficulties and you will get better. Practice makes perfect right? Honestly, I would of liked to see more tutorials in game to help players.
The way that the game uses the Dualshock 4, the Playstation 4 controller, is also impressive for the Playstation exclusive. Sound is input through the controller itself during gameplay to help immerse the players through each world. You can hear the “world narrator” announce updates through the controller as you play to let you know if a human is being targeted or is lost. The narrator also indicates if your weapons have upgraded and/or if you have picked up any specials along the way.
Score
Overall, RESOGUN is a pretty fun side-scrolling arcade game with some impressive visuals. Depending on the difficulty, the game can get hard real fast for new players and can become tough to play through. Keep in mind – practice makes perfect, so stick with it! I give RESOGUN a 8.3/10, as it is a challenging but fun Playstation exclusive.
The next game I will review is:
Wolfenstein: The New Order. It is an action-adventure first person shooter set in the Wolfenstein universe where the Nazis won World War II. The game is developed by MachineGames and is published by Bethesda Softworks (Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim). The campaign follows the protagonist William “B.J.” Blazkowicz in his fight against the Nazis in this alternate history. Wolfenstein: The New Order is the sequel to the 2009 video game Wolfenstein.
I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!! Until next game.
– John
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel
Video Games Galore 
I’m a fan of Resogun, remember it was the first thing I downloaded when I got my PS4 on the opening day. Still play it now!