Are you looking for a game that will hit you a feeling of 80s nostalgia while at the same time giving you fits of rage due to its difficulty being cranked up through the roof? Then Vortex Attack is the game for you!
Vortex Attack is a game PC only game released by Kaleido games that instantly reminds us older gamers of the hours spent playing Galaga, but Vortex Attack takes the action to a level Galaga could never even dream of. I went into this review considering myself an avid Galaga pro but I never expected Vortex Attack to be so challenging!
The premise of the game is quite simple! you move your ship around the screen and shoot everything that is in front of you. There is a "how to play" level that explains all of the different aspects of the game. "Collect the white triangular items (lumergy) and destroy the vortex". So you need to collect these white triangles to be able to destroy the vortex and move on to the next level. There is no story, or background info to explain why this is happening the only thing that you need to know that once it starts all mayhem ensues. You can also pick up ship power ups that drop from destroys enemies. They range from weapon upgrade, increased damage, extra health and so on and so fourth, to provide you a chance to get to the next level.
The first ship you are given at the beginning of the game cannot be customized or upgraded. Once you get past certain amount of missions you begin to unlock other ships after defeating the stage boss. You will need to be very strategic in what ship you decide to bring into battle. Each ship has different factors that make it different from the rest, whether its bullet power, bullet speed, bomb stock, amount of health or ship movement.
The amount of bullets and ships on the screen at any given point is borderline ludicrous. Thankfully you can shoot at incoming bullets to stop them but that doesn't make the game any easier. The enemy ships spawns infinitely until you finally collect enough lumergy to destroy the vortex. There is no way to tell how much lumergy you need to destroy the vortex, which at first seems unfair, but you wouldn't be able to keep an eye on the counter and survive at the same time anyway.
The music also leads you down nostalgia lane but sounding like it was directly ripped out of a 8 bit or 16 bit game from the 80s. While some of the ships lack detail or originality between stages the addicting game play makes up for it.
When you first load up Vortex Attack it initialises a hardware/graphics test to make sure that you will have a smooth experience and being that the game play is so fast paced this is an ingenious feature added by the programmers
Vortex Attack is a game that will make old school arcade shoot em up fans rejoice! I personally love the game play and intense action. While i stated that the difficulty is definitely cranked up, I couldn't get enough of trying to get to the next boss and unlock the next ship! This is a game I would highly recommend!
