Ion Assault XBLA

[monoRAIL]

So anyone else playing Ion Assault? It's got a horribly low rating (just over 2 stars) probably because it has an unusual control scheme and you can't sit still and keep shooting, but I think it's really good.

The mechanic of gathering gas and then firing it out is pretty novel and the chain system is very satisfying. Seems a shame that the general public don't have the patience for a complex game and can sink it by giving it a low rating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZXOg4neC_M

[Damocles]

I tried it out but wasn't too terribly impressed. Of course, this was mostly due to the fact that during the first few levels you're destroying mostly rocks.

[Zaarock]

Didnt really find the gimmicky firing mechanism to be that fun to use.. seemed like essentially you just need to release and then hold the RT every time you fire and the particles rebound easier next to walls. The movement controls are a bit floaty too. I like Shred Nebula more and Zombie Apocalypse came out at the same time as this so I didnt buy it.

The bigger enemies in that trailer look pretty fun, they should have made the trial show a few of the later levels too.. How do the later levels work out with the slightly floaty movement and explosions all over the screen?

[fog]

I didn't like the way rotation was mapped to the right stick. Interesting firing mechanism, but it essentially just meant you couldn't fire very much and I doubt that's something that appeals to most fans of the genre.

[Thunder Force]

I just watched that trailer you linked to, and even though I purchased the game at launch, I had no idea such interesting looking enemy encounters were even in the game. I played for about half an hour and all I did was break rocks apart and shoot the rare enemy trying to ram me, with a control scheme that seemed to be implemented purely to make aiming at things artificially difficult. On that latter point, since there's no actual Asteroids-esque thrust function, what nuance would the game lose by implementing a normal dual stick aim method? Wouldn't normal dual stick aiming just make the core gameplay more playable? (I feel like maybe there's a good reason which the game just hasn't explained very well?)

[fog]

On that latter point, since there's no actual Asteroids-esque thrust function, what nuance would the game lose by implementing a normal dual stick aim method? Wouldn't normal dual stick aiming just make the core gameplay more playable? (I feel like maybe there's a good reason which the game just hasn't explained very well?)

That's becoming increasingly common as developers try and stop their games from being labelled as "just another twin stick shooter". Of course in the vast majority of cases sticking with the twin stick control system would make for a much better game, but they don't let that worry them.

[Zaarock]

I'm fine with the right stick rotating the ship, it makes it play a bit different than say being able to do a 180 degree turn at once, you need to strafe more etc.

[TodayIsForgotten]

This game is very good. The demo put me off as well. It's got some depth to it with the scoring. Solid game.

[monoRAIL]

Yeah the controls are pretty wonky. They should have at least made dual-stick controls an option, even with a slow rotation speed it would work better. They probably lost 90% of their sales because the controls are initially annoying. However, after playing it for a few hours you do get used to it and realise that you have to play differently when there's enemies on screen than when you're just playing for asteroid combos. Also, to get high on the leaderboard you need to keep 1 chain going for the entire level, which means setting up nice asteroid combos and saving weapons until the time is right.