Just when you thought twin-stick shooters peaked with
Geometry Wars more than a decade ago, Happion Labs’ Sixty Second Shooter Prime
injects new life into the genre. With
addictive high-score chasing gameplay, nice presentation, and a perfect $5
price point, it is a great indie game on Xbox One that is easy to
recommend. See our review.
Game Details
- Publisher: Happion Labs
- Developer: Happion Labs
- ESRB Rating: “E” for Everyone
- Genre: Twin Stick Shooter
- Pros: Cheap; addictive gameplay; appealing presentation
- Cons: Lame unlock system
- MSRP: $5
Sixty Second Shooter Prime is a twin-stick shooter where you
move with the left stick and shoot with the right stick. The hook here is that each round of the game
starts with a 60-second time limit, but you can pick up time extension powerups
as well as trigger a slo-mo mode that makes the rounds last longer. Even with the powerups, however, each round
is over fairly quickly, which gives the game a very addictive “just one more
round” feel since you can chase high scores over and over and over again in
rapid succession.
The gameplay isn’t just addictive because it is fast, but
also because the scoring mechanics are incredibly clever. There are various powerups that randomly
appear on the play field along with gates that take you to the next level. Using powerups effectively is important,
obviously, but using the gates to go to the next level is the real key to
earning high scores. Each level becomes
more difficult, but also gives you much higher scores, so there is a
risk/reward system to knowing when / if you should go to the next level or
not. Snagging score multipliers and
taking advantage of chain reactions caused when enemies explode (which also
triggers slo-mo) plays a major role in earning high scores as well.
When you put all of this together, the game has a surprising
amount of strategy to it. Unlike
Geometry Wars where you ultimately just get overwhelmed with enemies, you
almost always simply run out of time in Sixty Second Shooter Prime instead of
“dying”, which is sort of more fun, I think.
You only have a limited amount of time, so being as efficient and
effective as possible within that time is how you get high scores. Because the powerups and everything are
doled out randomly, no two rounds are ever the same, either, which keeps you
coming back again and again. It really
is a ton of fun.
The only thing I don’t like is that the powerups have to be
unlocked first before you can use them.
That is fine, except for the fact it only takes you 20-minutes or less
to unlock everything, which makes having an unlock system totally
pointless. That really is the lone
blemish on the game.
The presentation is nice and simple and attractive. The gameplay takes place on a 2D plane and
all of the ships and bullets are basic 2D shapes. It is easy to see exactly where enemies / your ship / bullets
/powerups, etc. are at all times, which is important in a game like this. There are a couple of different graphical
options to change the colors of everything, which is appreciated.
The sound is also well done overall. Simple, just like the graphics, but still very effective. There are a couple of different music tracks, but the real star is the sound effects of your bullets and exploding enemies. They’re awesome.
Sixty Second Shooter Prime Xbox.com Page
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