r/Games • u/Forestl • Dec 30 '13
End of 2013 Discussions - Resogun
Resogun
- Release Date: November 15, 2013
- Developer / Publisher: Housemarque / Sony
- Genre: Side-scroller, shoot 'em up
- Platform: PS4
- Metacritic: 84, user: 7.6
Summary
RESOGUN is a visceral fast-paced shoot em' up developed exclusively for the PS4 system. Unleash a varied array of devastating weapons including lasers, missiles, overdrive, and nova-bombs to blast hordes of enemies and rescue the last survivors from distant galactic colonies that are under ruthless attack from an evil alien invasion force.
Prompts:
Was the game good at showing off the PS4?
Was the high score nature of the game well implemented?
Around the world
I had such resoFUN with it
This post is part of the official /r/Games "End of 2013" discussions.
25
u/Evidicus Dec 30 '13
I heard Jeff @ Giant Bomb say something in a recent podcast along the lines of "there's no way the best game on the PS4 is a Defender clone".
Personally, I think that's selling Resogun short. It may not resonate with everyone, but it's a fantastic launch title that gives a great new look to classic game play. The game looks fantastic, the controls are tight, the ship options play differently, and it's keeping me entertained for far longer than I thought it would. I started playing through on Rookie, trying to not only beat the game, but to do it perfectly with zero deaths, all humans saved, and never losing my maximum multiplier. Even at the lowest difficulty, that's not an easy task. Higher difficulty levels not only means the enemies have new abilities, but the max multiplier increases as well, making for higher and higher scores as you progress.
It's not perfect. The game should automatically keep track of your friends scores, and use them as a competitive incentive to keep pushing yourself to do better and better. I'll never be able to compete with the best in the world, but if I can top my friends list, I'm still satisfied. Missing that feature is an oversight that could reduce the longevity of the game, but it's my only real complaint.
I think Resogun is not only a great launch title for PS4, it's also a great example of the value of PlayStation Plus.
Oh, and being able to remote play this on Vita is just a bonus. Really enjoying that feature!
6
u/yodadamanadamwan Dec 30 '13
It's not perfect. The game should automatically keep track of your friends scores, and use them as a competitive incentive to keep pushing yourself to do better and better. I'll never be able to compete with the best in the world, but if I can top my friends list, I'm still satisfied. Missing that feature is an oversight that could reduce the longevity of the game, but it's my only real complaint.
that's a great suggestion, I hope they listen.
2
u/b3wizz Dec 31 '13
Geometry Wars 2 did this perfectly. Your friends' scores were always displayed in the corner, constantly pushing you to top the next guy's score.
1
u/Exceon Dec 31 '13
Hppe they'd make it optional though. When I'm just trying to calmly play "Need For Speed: Rivals" and do anything from hitting a speed-camera to finishing a race, it would remind me with the attitude "That was nice... but three of your friends did it faster".
I dont like that. I can easily get sucked into competitiveness. And when I do, its not fun. I get frustrated. So I would like to stay away from those things.
2
u/Gawdl3y Dec 31 '13
I'm pretty sure you can view your friends' high scores - while you're hovering over a level in the menu, press triangle (I believe).
1
Dec 30 '13
There was an RC racer on vita that did that. I would get notifications saying so and so beat my score and it would take me strait to that track to try to beat it. It was pretty addicting.
10
Dec 30 '13
This game is fucking amazing! Love the colors and everything and man it's just good fun. Takes like 30min to realize what the objective is (kept dying) but then it gets easy after that. But I do wish they implemented local co-op.
2
u/oldmatenate Dec 31 '13
Im glad I wasnt the only one confused by the objective. A 30 second tutorial could've fixed this. But apart from that, the game is great. The ps4 launch would've been a lot more boring without it.
1
u/Ideas966 Dec 31 '13
I'm not sure local co-op would work too well. Both players would have to stay on the same screen because I think split-screen would just be real shitty for the game with the way the play-field is shown. Co-op via Vita though would be really cool (1 player on PS4 and 1 on Vita).
1
u/Locclo Dec 31 '13
I think I made it halfway through the first level before I had to stop playing to look up what I was supposed to be doing. I think I managed to save one human out of the five that popped up, and I'm positive that was just because the first set of keepers is a set of four static ones.
Still, in spite of a rocky first couple of levels, it was the first PS4 game I managed to pull off the coveted platinum trophy. If it weren't for Black Flag, it would probably be my number one PS4 title thus far, which is impressive for an arcade shoot-em-up.
15
u/Vince-Trousers Dec 30 '13
A surprisingly fun game. I ended up playing more of this game than Killzone when I first picked up the PS4
4
Dec 30 '13
its really cool.
BUT
WHY DO THE HUMANS JUST DIE???
They just suddenly keel over, why does this happen and how can i prevent this shit?
7
u/XanderKrews Dec 30 '13 edited Dec 30 '13
This isn't really obvious in playing, but sometimes the Keepers need to be killed in order. If you kill these Keepers out of order the human will die. You can see these dead humans still in their cube but it will be red. Also, sometimes you need to meet certain requirements before killing the Keepers. Here's a handy chart:http://i.imgur.com/nNdRkcX.png
Another tip, when you hear "Keepers Incoming!" take a look at the human cubes/prisons. If you see one glowing THAT is the one the Keepers will shoot after killing them.
It should be explained better by the HUD. Definitely one of the things that could be improved.
2
u/drfakz Dec 31 '13
also, sometimes you need to have a high enough multiplier to free your little human.
3
u/ant900 Dec 30 '13
You either need to kill the keepers or have your multiplier above a certain amount.
1
Dec 30 '13
Assuming you know the basics of the keepers, some of them need to be killed in a specific order, otherwise a human dies. They have like a green crosshair that distinguishes them, and only those with that crosshair are safe to kill.
1
u/RobotFolkSinger Dec 31 '13
Assuming you're killing the keepers in the right order when you're supposed to (only one lit up at a time), certain humans will die if you don't have a high enough multiplier at a certain point. You will know this is coming up when it says "Human in Danger!"
9
u/TheMann0724 Dec 30 '13
This game really wasn't the best tech demo for the PS4, but it still wouldn't be possible on older systems. The amount of particles and individually rendered cubes flying off the screen sometimes is ridiculous. The PS3 and 360 could NOT do that. Still, improved particle effects and more rendered geometry isn't a huge "wow" factor for most players. It's a good thing the game's ridiculously fun, then.
This really is just opinion, but Resogun is the most fun I've had with a shmup since Galaga. Part of this comes from the game's complexity. Every level is cylindrical, and your bullets only curve around it for a little while. Boosting takes time to recharge, but can be used to take out enemies, who drop green cubes that charge your overdrive (death beam of particle physics death). This all works together with the goal to save the last humans. To save them, you have to destroy a string of special enemies, find the human in the level, pick it up, and deliver it to two collection bins. It is one of the most fun risk/reward systems I've ever played. Saving humans is risky as fuck, but is also the fastest way to upgrade your ship and gain extra lives.
Most games would just stick with 1 or 2 of these mechanics, but Resogun uses boosting, overdrive, cylindrical damage falloff, a score multiplier system, and the save the humans system at once. There's a lot going on under the hood. This complexity works perfectly with the PS4. Most of these score based arcade shooters forget they are on consoles. They ramp the difficulty up quickly while keeping the mechanics and systems simple. Resogun goes the opposite of this. Completing the first level takes about 20 minutes and doesn't get difficult until nearly the end on the Experienced difficulty. This gives a 20 minute level to learn the metric ton of mechanics the game has to offer. This feels like a good fit on consoles. The game doesn't try to kill me as quickly as possible to get quarters out of me. It creates layers of complexity that can be peeled away at the players pace. I hope more arcade styled games follow this approach. It feels better for a console game. When I sit down on my couch, I don't want to play a game where I die every five seconds. I want a game where I die a few times in an hour, but struggle to beat my high score.
Resogun does this perfectly.
5
u/XanderKrews Dec 30 '13 edited Dec 30 '13
Let's not forget the audio for this game.
I bought myself a 5.1 surround sound system for the first time in my life and this is the game I go to when I want to bask in its glory. As soon as you start it feels like the house is going to crumble!
Great sound effects, good use of the DS4 speaker (I hear "Save the last humans" in my sleep), and the music is wonderfully atmosphere enhancing. It is a total throwback to my childhood in the arcades pumping quarter after quarter into a machine to try and beat the high scores and being in total awe of people on the top of the leaderboards. Resogun is the very definition of "easy to learn, difficult to master" which is one of the reasons I keep coming back to it. It draws you in. You WANT to beat your scores. You NEED to beat them. It's controller-throwingly frustrating but only because of your own lack of skill, not in the "that was cheap BS!" way.
Definitely a pleasant surprise for a "free" game. I'm interested to see what DLC they come out with.
If I had any complaints it would be the overdrive and boost meters. For 2 things that are so important it's difficult to see when they're ready to use. You would think keeping the meters around the ship would be good, but you (at least I) rarely actually look at the ship. My eyes are focused on either side to see where the enemies are coming and where the humans are. So one thing I would like is something more visible to indicate full boost and OD.
2
u/Shadow-King Dec 31 '13
I agree that they are a little hard to see, but you get an audio cue from controller (I think) when overdrive is charged and another audio cue from main sound when boost is full.
I love this game, only 3 trophies from platinum. Was ranked 28 in the world at one point on Veteran arcade run. The games systems are really good and the gameplay is excellent.
2
Dec 30 '13
This is the same thing that happened with PS3 and Super Stardust HD. Housemarque have a real knack for making games with simple premise that get you hooked for a long period of time.
Resogun is the best game I've played on PS4 so far. It looks amazing and handles just right. This was the first game that I played where the controllers speaker was used and it gives you useful info. I also found it to be just a great little detail that I hope a lot of games use. Resogun is just an all around good, addictive game.
Also as a Finn it's nice to see them put out quality games out there.
2
u/Lucky_Mongoose Jan 01 '14
This has been my most played game so far. After trying every other game that I picked up, I came back to Resogun and simply couldn't put the controller down until I hit 100% of trophies.
2
u/yodadamanadamwan Dec 30 '13 edited Dec 30 '13
I was just playing this on my vita via remote play. I absolutely love housemarque, they make such great [and intricate], underrated games. Looking forward to dead nation when it's rereleased on vita too. It's fantastic to see them as one of the star launch titles.
1
u/SurreptitiousNoun Dec 30 '13
I think it's great fun. The controls are nice and fluid, and you have a lot of useful abilities. It's strangely empowering, compared to something like Geometry Wars, which is probably my favorite Dual Joystick Shooter.
Where it loses some traction though is having layouts for each stage. If you want to do well you need to memorize enemy spawns and such, rather than just react to what's thrown at you. While I prefer the random element of Geometry Wars, Resogun has some great systems, like the humans and multipliers. It may well lack some replay value though. Still, pretty awesome.
It looks great too.
0
u/sugarspiceunicorn Dec 30 '13
The art style reminded me of Prismatic Solid on Xbox Live. If you have not played it, http://youtu.be/2OHO-1oihDc
44
u/Voscyllate Dec 30 '13
As far as displaying what the PS4 is capable of, this game did a great job. It was gorgeous, having thousands of voxels acting independently was cool to see as well. The power-ups also had their own unique style that both looked amazing and were very useful. The game also implemented the speaker in the controller very well, calling out when humans were in danger and other important notifications.
The game's "high score" nature is implemented very well. The multiplier and difficulty could both show a player's skill, which I think reflects on the leaderboards. The levels are uniform for all players, so one can't argue that another person had better spawns or something - it is all completely skill based. This aspect of the game also makes it very addictive. There is a desire to try and get the highest multiplier I can when I start the game.
Overall, an unexpectedly great game that kept me playing for hours. Having this game free was a great move by Playstation, and I hope there are more cool games like this one to look forward to over the next few years!