GC Review: Resogun (PS4)

Resogun is the spiritual successor to the critically acclaimed Super Stardust HD. Developed by Housemarque as a Playstation 4 exclusive, Resogun combines the best of next generation gaming with a retro style that hasn’t been seen since the launch of Super Stardust HD.

Resogun taskes you with one thing; save the last humans. Sounds simple, right?

As a lone ship tasked with saving the last humans you need to destroy any enemies who stand in your way, including the “keepers” who imprison the humans. These keepers glow with a green hue and once destroyed shoot out a sort of laser beam which frees a human from his box.

 

Once the human is free you need to rush over to him, scoop him up and get him to a escape pod to be rescued where you get a little bonus for your hard work. Sometimes its an extra bomb that will wipe out all the enemies on the map or maybe an extra life but usually you find yourself getting points.

Killing enemies build up your points too but to really climb the leader boards your going to need to get that multiplier up. As you kill enemies your multiplier will build up as long as you don’t stop hitting something. After a few seconds without doing any damage you loss your multiplier and start all over again. Luckily you have things like boost to get you around the map faster while damaging enemies in case you end up in an empty area and overdrive which lets out a massive blast killing anything in its wake.

Resogun is a notoriously tough game to get through and even tougher to master. There are so many little things all happening at the same time it can easily be overwhelming. Trying to kill enemies while dodging fireballs, destroying keepers and finding the human in danger can take a lot out of you especially if your doing all that while trying to keep your multiplier up. When you win though its a great feeling and it looks amazing too.

Destroying enemies causes them to explode in a fantastic light show full of bright colors and huge amounts of particles that rain down from the sky onto the ground below. The sheer amount of particles is amazing especially since the game never drops below 60 FPS even while so much is happening everywhere on the screen.

Resogun’s controls are simple enough that anyone can pick it up and play but its better to watch and learn before you try to jump in. Trying to learn this game while playing is hard which is why I have found myself watching live streams to pick up a few tricks from some of the best players out there.

While Resogun doesn’t take advantage of the DualShock 4’s touchpad, it does use the built in speaker to give you important updates like keepers detected or human in danger. This gives you the feeling that your actually in the ship being warned directly about something rather then the warning seeming like its being broadcast to the whole world.

Resogun’s combination of retro style gameplay and beautiful next generation graphics truly make it a sight to behold. While at first Resogun may just seem like an ordinary side scrolling shooter as you dive deeper and deeper into the mechanics it quickly becomes apparent there’s nothing ordinary about this game.

With Resogun’s beautiful graphics and additively fun fast paced action this game should not be missed by anyone with a PlayStation 4 especially since its free with Playstation Plus.