Two new shmups for Ouya, Alien Bastards & Tiamat X...

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Was browsing on the Ouya site today and lo behold, a new shmup title by the name of "Alien Bastards" was up & running. Upon further inspection of it, it turns out that it's a modern-day remake of the classic Taito's Space Invaders shmup but with some cool & novel twists to spice up the gameplay. It's quite friendly on the ol' wallet as the pricetag is: Free. So no worries about having to pay with a credit card/debit card or even a pre-paid Ouya gaming card for that matter.

The overall graphical presentation pays homage to the classic 16-bit gaming era with the in-game sprites. By shooting the main UFO that'll occassionally make an appearance just above the regular SI small fry enemies (some enemies look like the Predator's head in likeness indeed), it'll drop a random power-up that you can use to clear the screen of SI baddies faster with ease.

Sometimes, random blue colored parts will fall out of the sky...try to pick 'em up and you'll slowly upgrade your fightercraft base.

You can pause the game in mid-session by simply pressing the Ouya gamepad's center power button once. Press it again to resume gameplay.

Another cool doujin shmup title for the Ouya is, "Genocide Circuit Rebuild" which is free to d/l and play as well.

It'd sure be nice if the Ouya company would release a proper dedicated arcade stick controller as some of the better indie Ouya games demand the need for one.

Plus, Ouya is running a special gaming deal on select indie titles which are free to d/l & play all this week. No strings attached either with having to deal with in-app purchases as there aren't any to begin with.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Pretas]

a modern-day remake of the classic Taito's Space Invaders shmup but with some cool & novel twists to spice up the gameplay. It's quite friendly on the ol' wallet as the pricetag is: Free.

You just described about 100,000 different disposable smartphone shovelware games.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yep, there's plenty of those shovelware games on the Ouya but if you take the time to seperate the better well made Ouya games from the crap, it's not that hard to do (considering that there are currently 871 Ouya games released to date to weed through anyways) but in the shmup genre, there aren't too many available right now.

And here's another new yoko-based CG rendered shmup title on the Ouya called Tiamat X out today as well: https://www.ouya.tv/game/Tiamat-X/

Reminds me of the classic PC Engine shmup of Gates of Thunder type of vibe.

This one has six stages...have yet to try it out and see how it fares. If you like it and decide to buy it, it's a only a mere $1.99 USD.

Upon playing the full version for a few minutes, here's the inside scoop of it:

Framerate tends to be around 30fps and the screen doesn't fully take advantage of the entire 1920 x 1080 screen (as the left & right sides have a bit of a black border)...definitely not arcade-spec 60fps (otherwise, the framerate would be silky-smooth).

It's an 8-way D-pad (or you can use the left analog stick if so desired) and a single fire button to play the game.

There are power-ups scattered about on each stage...by picking one up, it does enhance your fightercraft's firing capabilities.

At the end of each shmup session, you're given the opportunity to enter in your name or moniker on the global leaderboards (which is instanteously updated). Most shmup titles on the Ouya don't go the extra mile to have global leaderboard functionality though.

From checking out the credits page, it looks like it was a three person affair to create/develop Tiamat X hailing from the UK.

I'm sure with a bit more effort, it could be a worthy yoko shmup.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~