System Shock Meets Alien

Just a few years ago, you would not have been surprised to see a game like this getting cover treatment from the major PC game magazines. It's a nicely polished oblique-overhead third-person shooter set in a mining colony on Ganymede (one of Jupiter's moons) that is under attack by alien critters. The story line is nicely done too, with good voice acting and a real sense of tension and a colony under siege; naturally, weapons get more powerful over time, and NPCs work with you in later levels.

Classroom Doodles Come Alive in a Top-Down Shooter

Like everyone else, no doubt you've doodled little things on lined papers during boring classes. Maybe you doodled hearts and ponies, but more likely spaceships or airplanes. Matt Lucas apparently doodled soldiers and guns, at least by the evidence of this game: the graphics are pencil sketches, the background lined notebook paper.

Gameplay is simple, old-school shooting action; move your soldier with the WASD keys, shoot with the left mouse button or throw a grenade with the right, grab power-ups by walking into them. As you move across the map, you encounter enemies; if it moves, shoot it. Later on, you get to control a tank, and a helicopter. Simple fun, and the nature of the graphics is always charming, and sometimes rather humorous.

Cannons in Space

Spacetanks is a cannon game, a style that's been around since the earliest computer games, and is best known in the Worms series of games. There's a twist to Spacetanks though; you control a tank on one planet, and are trying to destroy an opposing tank on another planet somewhere across the screen. Your planet, and his, and others scattered about the screen, have gravity--and the path of your shots are influenced by gravity.

As with other cannon games, you change the elevation of your turret and the power of the shot, fire, and see whether you hit your opponent. Because of the nature of gravity, you sometimes wind up shooting yourself--it's possible for the shot to orbit back to you, which is irksome, to be sure.

In each level of Stealth Combat, you control a vehicle, ranging from an armed jeep to a Star Wars-like walker. Often (but not always) you have a variety of subordinate vehicles you can issue orders to. Each mission has a series of objectives--and generally, the other side has enough firepower to wipe out your entire force if you just charge in firing blindly. Which is where the "stealth" aspect comes in; this isn't quite Thief for vehicles--combat is often necessary--but succeeding typically requires a degree of finesse as well as mastery of the combat UI.

The Finest Sidescrolling Shooter of the 21st Century!

Possibly, anyway. Too bad there aren't more people in the 21st century who care about sidescrolling shooters....

One of the disadvantages in being a developer from a country where there isn't much of a development community and not a lot of connection to the modern market for games, is that you may well spend a lot of time, money, and effort developing a highly-polished game in the style of games you love--and then discover that publishers elsewhere aren't all that interested in your title because, well, it is so retro. Nobody makes them like that any more. And certainly not at this budget. And with these production values.

One of the advantages of developers from countries who make this mistake is that by bringing modern production values and passion for a particular style to the party, they can create a game that is so retro--and also positively kickass for what it is.