Capsized

Developer: Alientrap Games Inc
Steam Release: Apr 2011
Hours Played: 3.8
Similar To: Apotheon / Intrusion 2
Rating: 2/5 Parsnips



GAMEPLAY
The ambient and mysterious Capsized is a solid platform shooter with a sprinkling of basic puzzles.There are a few moves and abilities you'll need to master but it shouldn't take too long to get the hang of it. Just be wary of trying it with an Xbox controller for the first time, it is surprisingly hard to use. This is a 2D side-scroller where you control a space-man who has crash landed on a strange planet filled with vegetation and hostile insect-like creatures. There is little gravity so you are very light as you almost float along. In short, you shoot your way through the cavernous landscape to achieve an objective which usually means getting to a location or killing certain enemies. You pick up extra ammo and weapons along the way as well as extra health and jet-pack fuel.


BALANCE & PACE
The developers boast the game is non-linear and although you visit old areas occasionally you'll generally clear areas before moving on. On first play-through, there's quite a lot to learn as the first level introduces you to your many abilities. As well as the usual movement keys and jumping, you can also: use a grappling hook - to both swing, push and pull things; use a gravity gun to propel yourself from the surfaces and use many different weapon types that have further secondary uses. Using a controller may seem the logical thing to do but I found the keyboard and mouse to be a lot easier. The game is fun to play but is basically a straightforward run and gun game with the odd thing to push or pull out of the way and switches to press or doors to unlock.

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
As mentioned, the game does a great job in immersing you in its alien world. Think exploring a tropical rain-forest for the first time or a dense jungle teeming with hostile wildlife around every corner. It presents its story of the stranded spaceman with a few pictures in comic-strip fashion as a level gets loaded and gives a bunch of stats on completion of each level. This includes such information as time taken, number of deaths, difficulty, secrets, total score and enemies killed. All well and good, albeit a bit pointless as you don't get a high-score chart and hence no motivation to speed-run or replay the level to beat your previous efforts.


PROGRESS SYSTEM
Capsized comes with 12 missions that are mapped out on the side of a planet on the level-select screen and are represented by dots on a path as you go. There is an Arcade mode available from the title-page offering various challenges in the environments you've encountered in the campaign - but they're not that great. Campaign stats are available but this is not a precision-platformer. It's a game that can be enjoyed reasonably well but then uninstalled when finished; not one you'll want to go back to once complete. It also has one of those menus that fades-in and fades-out when you press the buttons making things last annoyingly longer.


 

CONCLUSION
Capsized has received plenty of praise from various sources but, for me, it's a standard platformer that doesn't do anything special or mind-blowing. It is true that the environments are nicely done and that it has a unique quality with a mysterious, ambient edge (helped by the subtle soundtrack) but the actual gameplay involving same-old mechanics that have been done many times before puts it squarely in the bog-standard category. Despite this, I still think it's well-worth a playthrough as I still had an enjoyable time in the game and apart from the odd moment of getting blocked inside some of the caves and having to get rid of some annoyingly hard-to-move crates, there is just not much to dislike about this game either.