Capsized Review
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If I had to use one word to describe Capsized, an indie action platformer, it would be beautiful. Everything in the game is hand drawn, from the pulsating environments and enemies that inhabit them to the illustrated comic panels that tell the story between levels. The art style is bright, vibrant, detailed, and utterly gorgeous. Backgrounds are comprised of multiple layers of animated detail, giving environments a dizzying sense of depth despite the 2D design, and objects in the foreground crawl and slither constantly. Its almost a shame that if you stop to try and take it all in, you will be mauled by the swarms of deadly enemies that populate these lush environments.  They sometimes have the satisfaction of killing you too. Thankfully shooting those enemies is satisfying thanks to a variety of weapons, alt fire modes, and power-ups that litter the environments. At first, you will only have to contend with some hungry fauna on the hostile alien planet, utilizing your handy pistol and grappling hook to clear paths and search the crash site for lost comrades. Soon the local animals are joined by a hostile indigenous alien population, and that trusty pistol is joined by machine guns, explosive plasma rounds, flame throwers, and more. The difficulty curve is well balanced, and with more powerful weapons come stronger and craftier enemies. This keeps you on your toes and lets the mechanics of the game shine. It’s exhilarating in the later chapters of the campaign as powerful alien priests and shaman teleport and fly around you while turning some of your weapons against you. Your jet-pack runs out of fuel and life is low. You’re grappling around the environment for life and limb, grabbing rocks and debris to form shields and throw as improvised weapons. While exploring the beautiful environments and gunning your way through hordes of enemies, you can search for hidden caches of weapons and collectable stars to improve your score. Not being one who is overly interested in collectable knick-knacks, I appreciate the inclusion of useful gear hidden away with them. It gave me an incentive to find the collectables for more immediate rewards. Those interested in high scores and rankings can also replay levels for speed runs, or go for high kill counts, as the game offers a variety of ways in which a players experience can be tallied and totaled at the end of each chapter. This, coupled with the arcade play modes–which includes a survival mode with waves of enemies, time trial, a mode without weapons, co-op play, and a vs mode–mean players are in for a fair bit of substance in one good looking package.  Gettin' my ass-kicking pants on! The real joy of the game is without question the excellent campaign mode; the arcade modes are nice additions, but they pale in comparison. The sense of wonder and exploration in a game is something I love and appreciate above all other things. Often, sadly, that sense of wonder decreases with continuous play of a game. You get used to the environment, the enemies, and the general tone of the game, and it slowly begins to lose the ability to surprise you. Capsized manages to gradually increase the scale and design of the levels to keep the wonder strong throughout, and the relatively short length makes sure things don’t get old. As you progress across the surface of the planet, you will see some beautiful environments, and these also begin to impact game-play. My favorite example comes in sometime near the end of the campaign. Levels thus far had been interesting, but as is standard for 2D shooters like this, they were largely horizontal. In this case I found myself in a massive, largely vertical environment with a lower gravity to it. Utilizing the physics engine, I was catapulting myself toward objectives with my grappling hook, soaring over floating islands and swarms of enemies. The combat took such a turn for this level, grappling to the sides of islands for cover before dropping under enemies and unleashing attacks before jet-packing and grappling my way to new cover. I don’t think I stopped smiling once during that mission. Missions are something Capsized does well. Once again owing thanks to its shorter length, Capsized manages to keep objectives varied, from rescuing crew-mates to hunting down powerful enemies through maze like environments. It keeps the player engaged. One particular objective I enjoyed featured the destruction of the indigenous alien’s idols, which emit a powerful repulsion field. These are shrines to their gods and religions, and as such are heavily defended from the strange spaceman intent on destroying them. They also repel any and all weapons fire. So, as you arrive to desecrate the indigenous culture, you are bombarded by the more powerful enemies in the game, but your own weapon fire gets redirected by the idols strange energies. This causes some intense games of cat and mouse, as you try to lure enemies away from the protective influence of the statue you seek to destroy. When you finally have an opening, you need to damage the idol with stones and debris in the level, hopefully before enemies find where your hiding. Intense moments like this can sometimes bring my one complaint with the game to light. The game will automatically switch weapons when you pick a more powerful one up, which is often helpful, but can also cause some frustrating deaths. The more explosive weapons for instance can harm you if you are too close to the blast, so when your beating back a mob of aliens and happen to back into a plasma launcher, well, you can sometimes find yourself splattered all over the walls. The checkpoint system keeps this from being too much of a headache, thankfully.  I love vertical levels in games. The campaign leads up to one excellent final battle in a zero gravity level of wide open spaces and narrow tunnels with some truly massive monstrosities to contest with. This massive end experience was the perfect cap for the game–it appears just as I found myself used to the latest enemies and hadn’t seen any new mechanics for a spell. Suddenly you have screen filling terrors that require new approaches to defeat, and this gives that difficulty curve one last flourish for the player to tackle. The campaign clocks in at a respectable three to four hours if you mostly ignore the collectable stars and high scores and don’t look at the arcade section of the game. This is just the right length to keep its beauty and wonder intact throughout and without having any mechanics become boring or a chore to complete. It also keeps the wonderful soundtrack from getting old, which would have been criminal. The soundtrack was created by Solar Fields, and they did an incredible job. With tracks that come across as alien and haunting, they are the perfect couple to the hand drawn vistas of the levels. This game is worth its price tag for its visuals alone; the addition of a sharp and satisfying 2D shooter with clever physics manipulation and puzzles is a happy bonus. Throw in the otherworldly music provided by Solar Fields and you have yourself one incredible game ahead of you. The campaign will keep you entertained, with levels and goals that vary enough to keep the shooting mechanic from ever feeling tired. Once that campaign is over, you can get a Steam friend to play co-op with you, or you can turn to the arcade modes for some additional fun. Just moving around in the game is somehow satisfying: jumps feel nice and floaty on the alien planet, the grapple allows for clever players to really bend the physics system, and crushing enemies under rocks or your own boots is simply fun. If you like intense 2D shooters, then this is for you. If you want to wander though a visually and audibly lush and beautiful game, then this game is a treat. I only just finished it and I’m already itching to replay the game and put my full understanding of the mechanics to use in the earlier levels. Just to experience it all again and to see just how much better I can do it. Check the game out for yourself. If you’re not won over by its visual style, grab the demo and experience just how satisfying its game-play can be.  My favorite moment in the comic panel style cut scenes. Check it out at the developers website for more information on the game. http://www.capsizedgame.com/ |
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