Not only does Super Stardust HD have the honour of being the very first “Must Have” Playstation Network title, it is still one of the greatest games on PSN to-date. The developers at Housemarque clearly know a thing or two about developing incredible shooters so it should come at no surprise that their latest shmup RESOGUN is pretty damn great!
I had the chance to play the game recently at this year’s Eurogamer Expo and after just a few seconds of blasting enemies with my fancy lasers I was sold! …Or at least I would be if RESOGUN weren’t completely free for all PS+ subscribers.
There are many similarities between Stardust and RESOGUN which has lead to this game being referred to as a spiritual successor rather than a brand new IP. For starters, both of these twin stick shooters take place beyond the skies where players are tasked with wiping out swarms of enemies on small, circular bases. However, while Stardust offered players the freedom to navigate around spherical planets, movement in RESOGUN is far more restrictive. Unlike its spiritual sibling, RESOGUN takes place on revolving 2D plane where your movement is confined to up, down, left and right. Additionally players are only able to shoot in the latter two directions which adds an extra layer of intensity and excitement.
Other elements carried over from Stardust include your ability to boost, deploy bombs and upgrade your weaponry by collecting on-screen power-ups. As their name imply, Boosting grants players a sudden burst of speed while the Bomb takes out all on-screen enemies at the expense of your combo chain.
Graphically RESOGUN is truly a sight to behold! If your looking for a game to show off the power of your shiny new PS4, this is the game for you! While it’s not as photorealistic as DriveClub, the sheer amount of particles, colours, lasers and enemies on screen at once is enough to dilate your pupils. Trust me, screenshots do not do this game justice!
Unfortunately the brief 5 minutes or so that I spend with RESOGUN wasn’t enough for me to provide a detailed gameplay analysis. But with that said, there’s no doubt in my mind that Housemarque will once again set an incredibly high bar for all next-gen PSN games to follow.
