The game gives you the option of selecting one of the five available "ship" types, their weapons can be adjusted in the Class Editor option in the main menu, where you can also add one or two upgrades for them.
Behold, Cyberspace new fighters. They don't look like anything you've seen.
GUNNER: The Fast-Spread Shot type. It uses a spread show with fast machine gun-like properties. Can be switched with the SMG, which is a Heavy Machine Gun styled weapon with medium spread.
PYRO: The Flamethrower type. The Flamethrower is its default weapon. Uses a spray of fire that inflicts heavy damages on enemies. Its other weapon is the Charge Shotgun which fires a spread of bullets in a close distance.
SNIPER: The Beam Rifle type. It uses the Sniper Rifle to fire a powerful beam capable of inflict great damages. But its fire rate is very low. Can be equipped with the Beam Rifle which uses a charge shot function to inflict damages.
CYCLOPS: The Laser type. Its default weapon is the Lasergun which fires a long range laser that charges up before firing. It can be replaced by the Blaster, which is a Laser Machine Gun.
ROCKETEER: The Missile Launcher type. Its main weapon, the Rocketgun, fires missiles that explode on collision. Can be replaced with the Charge Rocketgun, which fires rockets after being charged.
Atomine II: Arena Death Battle
The game is a 3 minute Arena shooter where the main objective is to stay on the leading position by killing the most enemies while keeping your losses as low as possible. To do this you will be relying in Towers that you can capture and use upgrades to increase your speed, double the damage to your enemies or recover some health. Towers can give you "Minions", AI-controlled allies that can help you on your attack or become a distraction for you to escape into the next room of the arena. Unlike any other arena-based shmup, this game requires you to press Left Trigger to jump from one room to another. This is very helpful when it comes to avoid potential death situations like being surrounded by the enemy, something that will happen constantly if the game is played "Offline with Bots", which is the 1 Player mode of this game.
If you die, you can respawn in random points of the arena, but also, you can change your class before respawning by pressing the X Button (Example: Die as Gunner, respawn as a Cyclops), resulting in a tactically efficient ability that allows you, your friends and the AI to become less predictable during the battle. Speaking of lower predictability, the game uses Procedural Generated arenas, so each battlefield will be different from the last one, increasing the challenge on each combat session.
WAY TO DIE #257 "HAMMER OF D'OH!"
The game suffers from nasty flaws that ruin the gameplay. Starting off with the weapon overheating (Another shmup with that problem again) which is fatal for an Arena shooter since the enemy doesn't suffer of this problem and they'll take you down faster than you can imagine. In "Offline with Bots" starts out way too hard since the AI seems to have the upper advantage because it looks more powered than you. So get used to see how you respawn in different parts of the stage again and again and again.
Also, one of the towers can bring you instant damage/death and it's the one with a skull marked on it, what it does is to fire a laser from the sky in pure Hammer of Dawn style. So the best strategy is to either capture it, or shoot it to deactivate it for a while. During the match, the game will throw random punishments for everyone like All Systems Lost, All Doors Shut and deactivating the towers. The first two punishments only take 1 or 2 seconds, so isn't too much of a game compromising thing, but it's good to know the game isn't just punish you. Tough but fair, if you want to think about it like that.
I guess this game was meant to be played as a multiplayer rather than a "You VS the AI", 'cos if you and your friends play in Deathmatch and Team Battle, it'd be more fun since the game is controlled by human beings with default power levels and it's all based on how skillful each player is.
This game is also one of those "Gamerscore Milkers" that infest the console stores nowadays, It took me less than an hour to unlock all the achievements, "Don't need any of that to win" and "Only one boost" might be the toughest ones to obtain, but not impossible to get. Yeah, its one of those "Buy, Play, Unlock the Achievements and Forget" type of games.
Graphically, it feels like a sequel of Atomine, since the game uses the concept of cyberspace and viruses as Atomine did, even the arena layout is reminiscent of said game. But unlike Atomine, it lacks of the vibrant colors that made the game more alive, while Deployment feels dull and even "dead" with all those almost monochrome tones with the exception of the blue and pink colors used by you and the enemy.
The music is quite nice, yet forgettable as we have this electronic ambient that tries to bring some atmosphere to the game, but for an arena shooter its quite too calm when the game is all action and also is not memorable or something like that, but if you ask me how to fix that, just put "Blood Enemies" by Eclipse and you and your friends are all set.
DEPLOYMENT CURIOSITIES
- The name "Cyclops" and its laser beam is a reference to the X-Men character of the same name.
- The achievement name "All your base are belong to us" is a reference to the famous introduction the Sega Genesis port of Zero Wing, which became an internet meme.
In conclusion, don't buy Deployment. Unless you want to get pelted by the overpowered AI enemies in fast cheap shots.
Also, its just another addition to the ever growing list of Videogame Junk Food that only wants a few bucks for 1,000 quick Gamerscore points.