(PC - Steam) Ion Assault and Swarm Arena

[Observer]

Meanwhile in PC land and while we wait for King Crimzon Clover, the second coming of the doujin messiah...

Did anyone try these shooters?

As part of the holiday sales, today they are going for $2.50, which I feel is a decent price so I'm wondering if anyone tried them. Here are the Steam links:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/41730/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/46600/

They have achievements and all that stuff people love nowadays and, by the videos, both look far better than the disaster Razor2 was, which by the way is also on sale for $4 if I'm not wrong. Way to screw up a golden chance to put a full fledged vertical schmukmup on Steam...

Thoughts?

[kengou]

I haven't heard of Ion Assault, but I grabbed Swarm Arena this week. It's not a shmup, though, by any stretch of the definition. It does have some kind-of shmuppy elements though. Either way it's a fantastic and unique game! I recommend it.

[auryn]

I have Ion Assault on my 360... it's an arena shooter, kind of similar to asteroids, but with a unique system where you have to charge your shots from the surrounding spacedust. When you charge you attract spacedust to your ship via a gravitational field, and then fire it away from you in a concentrated burst. Because you clear out spacedust from your location when you charge & fire, you need to keep moving around the playfield to where the dust has ended up. There are 4 areas, each with 5 levels and a boss level. So far I think it's a lot of fun. My only point of criticism would be that the controls aren't as tight as they could be, your ship is a bit slow to turn around.