14 DAY TRIAL // Continuous fire from my minigun keeps the fast hordes of roach-like creatures at bay, with an occasional missile added to the firepower pile to add an opening I can move through. My mech can launch a special move to kill enemies in a radius around but I’m keeping that in my pocket for a truly dire situation. I deal with the roach situation and artillery fire materializes around. This requires solid use of my mech’s boost and good rocket fire. I still need to conserve resources to deal with the big arena at the end of the level.
Uragun is developed and published by Kool2Play, with the game currently in Early Access on Steam. This is a top-down action game centered on a giant mech and his battle against rogue artificial intelligence-powered robots.
The narrative is slight but effective. Humans seem to have disappeared and the world is dominated by red-tinged robots that want to destroy any independent thought. Gamers will take control of a capable mech, joined by an uninterrupted A.I., who can move from location to location, trying to find people and find out what happened.
To do this the player needs to move down impressive amounts of enemies. Some move fast and get in your face, others launch indirect strikes, and some have ranged projectiles or beams, with more varieties introduced later in the campaign. Players have two weapons on the mech to take them down, a minigun and a rocket launcher. Keep them firing at all times and focus on moving to avoid incoming potential damage.
The mech can also launch special attacks, powered by the energy dropped by defeated enemies. A dash makes it easier to avoid attacks, although it has a relatively long reload.
Uragun looks decent and, more importantly, the presentation never gets in the way of the combat. I want more personality, both for the mech main character and his enemies. But in the middle of a big battle, with waves coming at you and artillery raining down, it is easy to understand what the biggest threats are and act on that knowledge. The soundtrack suits the action, but it needs more variety.
Conclusion
I appreciate the customization layer and the way new abilities and powers change how I approach situations and waves of enemies. But I fear that there’s too little in the way of variety to keep players engaged. It will be interesting to see how Kool2Play tweaks Uragun before the 1.0 version arrives.
Preview code provided by the publisher.
