Bit Blaster XL

 
Developer: Nickervision Studios
Steam Release: Jan 2016
Hours Played: 5.6
Similar To: Bullet Candy / Everyday Shooter / Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved / Polychromatic
Rating: 4/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY

Bit Blaster XL is an Asteroids inspired, retro shooter that's a fully-fledged throwback to the classic games of the 1980s. With its 16-bit pixel-art style and very simple design, it's a game that could almost pass as being made during that era. No doubt if it had, it would have been an instant hit. This is no frenetic twin-stick shooter with missiles gushing forth from your ship like hailstones in a storm. Taking control of a chunky and simple-looking spaceship you slowly steer while firing slow-moving missiles in the direction your ship is facing. The aim, of course, is to amass the greatest score while avoiding asteroids and various enemy ships and their missiles. Additionally, Nickervision clearly believe that the wrap-around mechanic is for wimps as contact with the edge of the screen will instantly kill you on impact.
    

BALANCE & PACE

Choosing from one of eight unlockable ships varying in fire-power, speed and health you'll notice you have limited ammo as an indicator counts down from 100 as you fire. To compensate, white floating plus signs in little green circles can be collected and will top you up five missiles. Meanwhile, power-ups of larger circles and of different colours bearing a large capital letter will gradually float onto the screen one at a time. These are random and have any one of sixteen different effects from the shield, spreadshot, rapid-fire, explosion, fireball and homing missile etc. While figuring out which power-up best suits your style is key, the game constantly makes you adapt and demands split-second decisions. It's the finely tuned balancing and the great all-round flow that generates an excellent firm-but-fair, old-school style gaming experience.
  

PRESENTATION & DESIGN

Power-ups, for instance, differ in the amount of ammo they use so even though the five-pronged spreadshot or rapid-fire may seem overpowered, wanton and indiscrimanate use will soon swallow up your stock of ammo in no time. As well as good technical features like an accelerator and break (very conveniently mapped to the left and right trigger on the Xbox controller) the game also comes with a catchy soundtrack that chugs along nicely as you play. Like Bit.Trip Runner 2, this revolves around using variations of the same theme tune but in this case there is a different one for each ship; further showing how much extra attention to detail the developer is prepared to make and adding to the game's character. 

PROGRESS SYSTEM

As the game hinges on the score of one endless/survival level, there is no level-select screen but rather a ship-select area before you play. You'll scroll through eight altogether distinguished only by their ship-number, slightly different shape (they're all mainly white with a dash of blue and red) and their own fire-power, speed and health stat. Another unique feature is that each ship can be played with auto-fire either on or off and the best score for each individual ship (with either auto-fire on or off) is clearly displayed which gives you 16 scores to set altogether. As a relatively popular game on Steam, one thing I feel may be missing is the inclusion of an online leaderboard which would have brought more competition and some context to the proceedings.

CONCLUSION

As mentioned, Bit Blaster XL's success is largely down to its superb balance. No particular power-up has clear supremacy over another and I like the fact that spamming the fire button with gay abandon will quickly deplete the ammo supply and punish the player. Even the unlockable system, that add ships to your roster as you collect sparkling gold, introduces ships at a good steady pace. The fact that my only negative of the game was confusion around the effect of the auto-fire button and that I'd personally do away with it and have 16 ships rather than 8, only goes to show how polished it really is. At the price of a bar of chocolate Bit Blaster XL is worth adding to the library.