Vax-11

Moshboy

Trusted

Vax-11 is a vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up, entirely made with ASCII. In basic terms, this means that the game looks retro. When I say retro I don’t just mean ‘from the days of Final Fight’ retro, I mean ‘from the days of Space Invaders and Pong’ retro. The game is black and white with extremely simplistic graphics. From this description alone you phrases might be entering your head such as ‘this is lame’ and ‘I wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole.’ This is where you would be completely wrong. As simple and retro as the graphics are, they also manage to be complex and dare I say it, modern. The game may well be completely black and white but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have beautiful scrolling backgrounds, large bosses and lots of different enemies spraying their fire spraying left, right and center (all done with ASCII characters of course). This is as hectic and fast-paced as any shoot ‘em up you will find. The sound, as you might expect, is not just a serious of bleeps – it contains a modern pulsing soundtrack and a few half retro-ish, half modern sound effects that do the job just perfectly. The soundtrack is loud, hence it is what you will hear the most and although it really isn’t very long, it is rather hypnotic in its own way and fits the game play perfectly. Speaking of gameplay – this game is everything you would expect from a vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up – it has bosses, power-ups, frantic shooting – all the usual features you would expect. That doesn’t mean to say that for all its beauty and grace that it doesn’t become repetitive – quite the opposite. It may captivate the hardcore shoot ‘em up fans for quite a good deal of time but for the casual players who don’t have much tolerance for repetitive action (this is where the black and white graphics DON’T help) – well let’s just say it won’t be holding their attention for an awfully long time. Personally I consider myself in-between the two extremes – I love shoot ‘em ups, hence I consider myself a fan but I don’t play them for eight hours straight at a time, hence I don’t consider myself hardcore. Based purely on style and beauty, this game gets a decent rating but its repetitiveness does bring its rating down a somewhat.

GenoStar

This game is entertaining, yet confusing because you can't seem to tell when you're going to die or not. At one point I ran through an entire volley of enemy fire to come out unscathed, yet another time I ran into a single missile and died instantly. You should at the very least give this game a try.