This time is Endurance: Space Action.
Hope you don't blow it since your game cost me eight bucks.
When you start the game for the very first time, you'll get a Thank You message from the developer called Ivan 'cos you've bought this game and hoping you've enjoyed the previous game, Ailment.
Welcome to the show "Test your Luck".
Let's give a loud applause to our contestant, Sa-aaa-am Ferguson!
After selecting Single Player and the difficulty you want to play, it's time to choose your character, they have unique initial stats and it's very convenient to select one with balanced Health, Regeneration and Shield Recharge levels. The last two are the utmost priority since you can recover health with time and reduce the time required to a rate of 1.5 points per second (I'll explain this one later), the same applies to the shield recharging once you find the Power Shield.
Fear The Walking Weird and Shoot The Walking Weird.
The gameplay is like its predecessor Ailment; a maze-like vertical Run-N-Gun in the style of Sega's Alien Syndrome, although here is more of a Metroid-like structure as your navigation is from one level to another as if each maze is a room. Your weapons can be aimed on any direction you want as it relies on the same mechanics of a Twin Stick shooter. You are also granted the ability of pick and carry multiple weapons and even upgrade them with Fire Power Packs that increase their rate of fire, an essential strategy is to equip your default pea-shooter pistol so you can have something closer to a machine gun, and a good reason to power up the defaul pistol is that all the other weapons "break" once their energy depletes, so they work like the special weapons in Megaman. A key between life and death is the Power Shield, since once its deployed it can regenerate in time when you're not in combat.
Unlike the basic arena shooter, when the game enters in this "Combat Mode", the map is removed and for some absurd reason you can't open lockers and chests to find health packs or weapon repairing tools (weapon refill) until the enemies are gone, indicated by the map returning to the screen.
Sorry dude, I didn't knew your daily walking was SO important.
To add a little more life to the game, it brings some NPC's to the scenery which add random and useless quotes from don't being bugged while walking to threats of punching you.
All of them are useless off-duty, but when an enemy appears they can punch them, and they can die if they take too much damage.
Exploration is also a key factor in this game, since most of the times you'll be required to find a keycard or reach a specific spot on the map, but you can explore all the areas of the ship for a vast "Treasure Hunt" on any room and let me tell you, this is very recommended because there's items that expand your status, saving you some money (between 600 to 1000 in credits spending) as they add a 3% to 5% on your character skills. Also, you can find new weapons and the Fire Power Packs that I've mentioned you before.
My first gun after taking a few unavoidable punches.
In the first level, your objective is to find a gun, and this is when difficulty hits you, To begin with, your initial defense are your fists, but there's one problem; the time delay between the button pressing and the punch thrown, as if your character punches with a snail pace, but your enemies will already hit you twice or thrice. Also, the oh-so-annoying Turridamage is present in this game, so multiple punches or constant firing will torn the character to bits and bring the player down to their knees and if you've picked the game on Hardcore difficulty you'll be regretting it since the enemy seems to have almost perfect aim and what's worse; missile weaponry with blast radius that inflict damages even if you dodge the missile and hits a wall. You will need to keep any weapons you've got since you'll need a specific type to inflict reasonable damage to escape from tight situations like the robots and bosses.
Another complaint is the downgrading after completing a level, if you've upgraded your weapon, the game will downgrade it to its defaults for no reason, killing the purpose of picking the Fire Power Packs. You can get them again on the next floor, but what's the point if you'll power down again?
It's everything at $200, from Shields to Health!
Along with new weapons, you can also get money from the enemies killed, even bosses. This is where the Status shop comes in handy. Here you can upgrade your status even further. Increasing "Regeneration" reduces the time required to recover 1HP , same for the "Shield Recharge". These two are the priority to survive. "Trap Detection" increases the range to detect a hidden trap like a mine and "Speed" is for the character's movement.
The Pri¢e of Life!
The game takes the concept of "Money Talks" to extremes at the point of forcing you to buy a respawn by 200 credits. Yeah, dying is the worst in this game, because if you don't have money or you don't want to pay for it you can only restart the stage, or exit the game. Also, paying for respawn doesn't help too much since you can do that only once, and the game revives you with low energy and if you had Fire Power Packs equipped, they'll be resetted to its default, (Your upgraded default weapon degrades to the crappy pea-shooter that was) making the stage restart more convenient.
If you trip the sensors...
I'll be sleeping with the fishes along with this entire ship.
Along with the regular enemies and bosses, there's hidden traps scattered in the game. While mines are the most common, there's also deployable robots that will attack you. You can deactivate them when the trap indicator appears. But in the case of the robots, you can destroy them when they're deployed and get credits like any other enemy. You can tell the difference between mines and robots since the robots are 2x1 tiles.
Outnumbered, overwhelmed, overkilled.
How's this show's called?: "Killing me softly".
Officers Quarters is gonna be the worst of the stages since the game will trigger an event called "Run" where you'll have to run to an indicated point in the map (if its not seen in the radar, press Left Trigger to reveal the map) before time reaches zero, otherwise the game will end, forcing you to restart the stage. This might sound simple, but there's a major problem: The enemy will outnumber you and no matter what you'd do, they will take your HP away in seconds. Now you see why the Turridamage was an issue in this game?, combined with the pay-per-respawn this means ragequit, it's Alien Syndrome done and gone wrong.
Navigation Center will be another frustrating stage. This time you'll be assigned to protect a scientist during a Run event, if he dies you'll have to either pay 200 for revive him once or restart the level. Combine that with never ending hordes of enemies and the time pressing you, it becames an exercise of stupid difficulty that will frustrate must old-school Run-N-Gunners.
Way to die #640: Blasted by the Crew.
The ending of this game just sucks. It turns out that the insanity virus infected the whole ship, including you, so you have to isolate in order to prevent the rescue to come. But it turns out that they arrive to the Endurance and they found you already nuts, forcing them to kill you. In a twist of irony, you survive (despite your character is a bloody mess in the floor) and they take you to the ship.
It can't be...
After the craptastic "Shot you dead" ending, you'll be sent to the credits. If you decide to watch them to the end, you'll find the "Avengers Initiative" of bad games, as our buddy Ivan throws the "WAIT FOR MY NEXT GAME" message as the screen slowly fades to black. ¿Does that mean a continuation of the story or a whole different game?, Only time will tell. But one thing is certain for sure, I'll be ready to play it and review it.
For indie game standards this looks great.
Graphically, it makes an aim to the Indie 16-bit inspirations as we have some pretty well made pixel art blended with some modern lighting/shadowing effects that provide a dark atmosphere to the whole game. The character seems to bee "double layered" since one layer is the main sprite and the other is the "weapon in hands" that move while aiming with the Right Analog stick. As an horror-themed game this game is not for kids, since there's dismemberment and blood. While its not the realistic Mortal Kombat 11 grade, you'll see intestines and blood splashes troughout the game.
As for the sound, there's not too much music as must of the time the game throws us a hum-like tune to add an atmosphere of Alien-like suspense until an enemy appears and the music changes its pace to a more sci-fi thriller style. There's not too much voice acting either, except for the character grunts when they took a hit.
ENDURANCE: SPACE CURIOSITIES
- Single Player is wrongly written as "Singleplayer".
- The random quote "Did I just heard a Britney Spears song?" is a reference to "Oops, I did it again".
- "Do... Or do not. There is no try" is a quote from Yoda from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
- The quote "Why did they call this ship Endurance? It's like in that movie from 2014..." refers to the Endurance ship from Interstellar.
- "Yavin 4" refers planet Yavin IV from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, where the battle against the Death Star took place in the event known as the "Battle of Yavin" ("BY" in Star Wars chronology)
We know the rest: "...sipping an umbrella drink with Margaret while you're watching the sunset together."
Seriously, don't buy Endurance: Space Action. While the game tries to bring back memories of Alien Syndrome, the bad decisions pulled are the factor that turns the tide against the game.
Like with the shmups I've reviewed, this game only works to get some quick achievements.
8 bucks to 10 cheap trophies? Even Triggerheart Exelica was much more fun and challenging than this and it cost me 10 dollars, a couple of bucks more than this crap.
*Sing "It's now in the trash" to the tune of "She's out of my life" by Michael Jackson*
It's now in the trash
It's now in the trash
People ran you over, faster than you
You can only punch'em, with turtle's pace
Spending cash for respawn?
It's now in the trash
It's out of the XBOX
It's out of the XBOX
Turridamage pleeeaaase? What the hell
Weapons downgraded for nothing, that's called "STU-PI-DI-TY"
Now the way that it stands
It's out of the XBOX
Run events, the whole world is now against you
Victory, but they shot you dead
You've just paid for 10 cheap achievements
Gamerscore...Milker, damn
It's now in the trash
It's now in the trash
Damned advertising, those stupid blurbs
Wasted eight bucks along with HOURS OF MY LIFE!
Sequel threat? Damn it, man
It's now in the...traaaaash