Horizon Shift Review (Steam)
A new, retro-inspired schmup right on your PC
I started gaming on the Atari 2600 so I may be biased, but Horizon Shift really captured the look and feel from a lot of my favourite games from the era; Asteroids, Galaga, Breakout, Space Invaders, Tempest and then cranked the fast-forward dial and still managed to blend all those different gameplay types into one continuous and constantly changing challenge.
That’s not to say this game doesn’t have it’s own voice and style. Horizon Shift is certainly retro-inspired and does a great job reminding me of those old-school games but it’s more than just a cheap knock-off.
Like I said, the guys over at Flump Studios gave me this version to check out. It’s available on Steam for the PC but there have been murmurings regarding a physical copy for PC as well as a distant possibility of a Dreamcast release (I have my fingers crossed but can’t hold my breath on that one).
While checking out the game, I faced two, fairly trivial, complaints;
1. No decent USB-Joystick.
It’s fair to say I do most of my gaming via a console. I was hoping I’d be able to get my Neo Geo X Arcade Stick to work for the game but due to the inputs, I was left in the lurch with my keyboard. It worked well and it was responsive, great controls in general but with these retro-style games, the control input feels kind of important.
If you’re a fan of these games on your PC (or you’re a big PC gamer),there’s a good chance this is a non-issue and you have your own USB gamepad or arcade stick.
2. Performance issues on my Laptop.
My workhorse laptop is 5 years old. It is an Alienware M11x and the processor in it is one of the first laptop-grade i7’s (with about 1.2ghz). The graphics card is a mobile Nvidia one with 1GB of RAM. The stats aren’t great, it’s an old computer and on paper, my Android tablet probably has better specifications. With all the effects turned on, Horizon Shift was very choppy and the bomb literally brought my laptop to a stand-still. Turning off the background video helped immensely and it’s a valid way to squeeze some extra juice out of an older computer running this game.
Regardless of the trivial issues, the game was a lot of fun regardless and there were plenty of additional modes available to keep things interesting. Again, nearly felt like back on the old Atari 2600 flicking through game modes to find something different.
You’ll be able to find Horizon Shift and check it out over here.
Or, check out a good friend of mine, John – Gamester81, review the game here.
