Sailing Away

Welcome to the first post of Rerolls!

So what is the point? Well, I have a bunch of games that I need an excuse to play. I also have been looking for an excuse to do some writing. I figured that writing a review every week would be a good way to attack both of these desires. I probably will not be presenting the latest hot thing (my purchasing habits are largely focused on whatever is cheap on Steam) but there should be a good deal that flew under your radar on the bill.

For my maiden voyage, I will be reviewing Waves (awful puns AND a strange nautical theme!).

OK, so this has nothing to do with boats. Waves is a twin-stick shooter developed and published by Squid in a Box using the Unreal engine. Basically you are a ball trapped in a circular arena blowing up wave after wave of enemies for a high score.

There are six different play modes. Crunch Time is your basic time attack mode where you aim to hit the highest score possible within the time limit. Survival's pretty self explanatory, you just keep shooting things until you run out of lives. Rush is timed like Crunch Time but with the opportunity to extend your time by achieving some goals. Bombing Run turns your gun off, forcing you to continually run over checkpoints to activate bombs in order to clear enemies. Challenge is a series of 20 scripted waves which reward things such as quick clears and large combos. Finally there is Chase, a mode where you are required to roll over a checkpoint every 5 seconds in order to survive

I have a confession. I love arena shooters. There is something entirely satisfying about chasing a high score with no story or motivation worth mentioning. Your advances seem so much more meaningful when they are based on perfecting your grasp of the game mechanics rather than grinding levels until you reach critical mass.
The experience the Waves brings to the genre certainly does not disappoint. Largely the sole effort of Rob Hale, the game has a surprising amount of polish to it. The controls have a pretty natural feel to them while really getting the point across that you are essentially rolling across the arena. Despite claiming to be no artist, Hale has created an incredibly attractive visual style and the music by SMILETRON provides a pleasant backdrop. As far as game modes go, while Survival is my go to I am quite fond of Bombing Run and Chase. Both provide very white-knuckle, edge-of-your-seat game play in their own way. The slow-mo offers a way to get out of sticky situations without making it too easy and bombs based on your current combo provide a nice way of giving yourself some breathing room when things get too cluttered. The game even has a good bit of humour, offering jibes about your performance after every round. My biggest knock would be the score cap, an unfortunate artifact of the programming. While I have never been close to achieving it, knowing it is there is a bit of a disappointment.

It is important to note that this game is not Geometry Wars. I find the controls more organic, the visuals more attractive and the game play experience better overall. Or at least I think I do. Right now Geometry Wars is giving the hilarious error of “Failed to find Steam”.

Oh You.

Now rather than add to the abundance of meaningless scores in game reviews, I will simply say I like Waves. While I am aware that score chasing in arena shooters is not everyone's thing, for those who are into it this one comes highly recommended. Check it out on Steam. Summer sales are coming soon (possibly tomorrow as I write this) and the base price is only $10 to begin with.

That is all for this week. Hopefully I will stick to this and have something up before next Monday.

Until then, GG.