Steam Twin-Stick Round-Up: Enter the Gungeon, One Shell Straight to Hell, Geometry Wars 3, Orbital Invaders

Every once in a while, a game rolls out that is pitch perfect. Enter the Gungeon is just such a game.

It’s a twin-stick shooter. It’s a dungeon crawler. It’s pixel art. EtG knows what its strengths are and plays them up well.

Graphically, it’s cute and engaging. Deceptively so. Because what lies beneath is a tough and complex bulletfest. Your character may be bouncy and full of smiles, but it has one mission. Kill everything that moves.

You’re given a choice of four characters, with a fifth available only in co-op mode. They each have different weapons, abilities, and default items, and exploring those choices is itself engaging. While your default weapon never runs out of ammo, there is a wait-time for reloading, which becomes a serious factor in the heat of battle.

After an important tutorial level, you enter a randomly generated series of rooms and face increasingly challenging enemies. I say the tutorial is important because there are a few skills you definitely need to master if you want to survive. You can flip tables to use as cover and even push them ahead of you, and you can dodge roll out of the line of fire. I daresay the game would be impossible without the ability to roll through the barrage of oversized projectiles fired at you.

The dungeon aspect also has everything you would expect. Random weapon drops and power-ups, keys, chests, locked doors, shops. There are pits that can be crossed, or more likely, fallen into. Most intriguingly, there are secret doors that can only be revealed if you have the right weapon. There are even teleport areas that let you warp to other areas of the map, saving you from a lot of traveling through empty rooms you’ve already cleared.

It’s rare to find a game that does two entirely different things, and does them both extremely well.  The gameplay is great, and the random nature of the dungeons insures nothing gets too repetitive. I even encountered two entirely different bosses in multiple playthroughs of the first level. And the bosses are tough, making the enemies you meet up to that point seem like mere training targets by comparison. Beating even the first one is a real accomplishment.

EtG is full of details that add to the overall polish of the game. Sometimes you have to make a choice as to whether you pick something up in exchange for what you’re currently carrying. Re-enter the room you left an item in, and you’ll find a note from an enemy, thanking you for leaving behind something they can use against you.  The weapons and special items are diverse and numerous. A Molotov cocktail, for instance, does great damage…but will kill you, as well.

Likewise, there are a ton of enemies, and they possess a wide range of characteristics. Looking at the included ‘Ammonomicon’, there seems to be a staggering number in the game, slowly unlocked as you progress. That’s really encouraging, as the game is plenty of fun with the handful you face at the start. I see a ton of replay value in this game.

If you do happen to beat EtG, there’s already a sequel, Exit the Gungeon, as well. But that will take some serious effort. I can’t say enough good things about this one, and it’s a steal at the $5.99 I got it for on sale. Do yourself a favor and buy it.

One Shell Straight to Hell is an interesting shooter that incorporates RPG elements and is heavily story driven. A bit like the comic/series Preacher, you play a priest who favors bullets over acts of contrition to solve problems.

The first level involves a spooky mansion and rescuing a woman’s possessed daughter. It’s all nicely atmospheric and darkly lit and doesn’t take itself too seriously. You pick up on that when you start getting attacked by chairs, pianos, and rugs.

The woman herself serves as a guide and also functions as an AI partner, doing some shooting of her own, on occasion. Her narrative initially pushes the story along. The dialogue is decent. It’s occasionally funny, but not exactly over-the-top hilarious, sometimes lapsing into self-awareness and breaking the 4^th wall. One tiny aspect I didn’t care for is that your companion repeats her scripted lines each time you enter a room. It destroys the illusion slightly and would have been better if she only said something once.

It’s all quite playable. You can heal yourself by praying, but that will take a few seconds, so don’t count on it in a major battle. You can also unleash a holy blast of sorts, doing damage to anything in its radius.

The game is well done graphically and has a tiny twist that’s almost unnoticeable. Everything is constructed of tiny voxels, rather than being traditionally 3D rendered. An interesting and curious choice, but it works.

There is ammo to collect, of course, and the occasional gun to be found. But there’s also a crafting element, and the ability to reclaim rooms by ‘repairing’ them. Creating objects such as bear traps and reclaiming rooms becomes a necessary part of your overall strategy.

Eventually you’ll encounter things like spiders, which emit a poisonous gas that lingers for a few seconds, and a large demon of some sort, which is keeping the woman’s daughter hostage. Defeating it moves you on to a second, much tougher phase where the enemies attack you in larger numbers.

It gets tough, and so far I haven’t fully completed the mansion level. I will, though, because it manages to keep you interested in the story, and what lies ahead.

One Shell Straight to Hell is a good game, easily worth a few bucks, if you’re looking for a shooter with a bit more thought behind it.

There's not a lot that can be said about Geometry Wars 3 that I haven’t already said in my review of the original Geometry Wars, except that it’s ten times better.

The playfields are wildly inventive, at times giving a nod to Tempest, Super Stardust, and even the original playfield from the first game. The level progression and goals give you a lot more to play for than just a high score. Honestly, it just makes the first game seem silly and quaint by comparison. 

Most interestingly, there is a group of people who play it by not shooting. If you really want a taste of bullet hell, check out pacifism gameplay on Youtube. No actual bullets involved, but wow. These people score more than I ever will, without ever firing a shot.

This game is big, with staggering graphics and level design. It’s tough, but fair. Endless replay value here, and it’s a must have game if you love twin-stick shooters. The series is so good that there is a push for Geometry Wars 2 to be ported to the PC, as it’s only available on the Xbox consoles. If you don’t have this one already, pick it up.

Speaking of Super Stardust...

I picked up Orbital Invaders, because it looks like a nice Super Stardust type game. I love this style of gameplay, obviously, and this has a nice, unique look to it. 

Unfortunately, there has been nothing I can do to make it actually run. It's in my library, I remain hopeful, but thus far, I haven't actually been able to play it. Pity. 

I could get my money back, but that feels like a dick move, taking back a dollar or whatever I got it for from an indie coder. I have contacted the developer, but I don't see any progress being made, and I'm not the only person who's had this problem. Buyer beware. Maybe you'll have better luck than I did.