Hypership Out of Control is a retro themed vertical scrolling shooter. Your Hypership has no breaks and the accelerator is stuck at full throttle. You start of at a snails pace and as you shoot and dodge your way through the ten levels full of asteroids, space structures and mine fields trying to stay in one piece, your ship increases in speed.
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Five modes are available to play. The Normal game is just that, work your way through the levels with three lives, collecting coins which contribute to your score. The Hardcore mode is much the same, but you start with just the one life. Super Speed removes the speed limiter so it is a real test of your skills to stay alive. Coin Down is an against the timer style game, your coins continuously drop as well as when you die, so you must keep them topped up by collecting coins on the levels. If your coin stash reaches zero it is game over. The final mode is a Practice mode which allows you to replay any previously beaten levels, useful if you want to work out the best strategies on a level. The modes are a nice mix of gameplay styles, my particular favourite was Coin Down as it made you take risks to keep the coin count up.
Hypership Out of Control is one of those games where it is not overly difficult to play but it has that right balance where if you want to take risks it can become tricky. The levels are designed in a way that taking a certain route may be harder but the rewards are greater with power ups such as Power Shot which can destroy structures, Slow Down which resets your speed back to normal and Magic Star which gives you some respite with invincibility. There are several power ups in total and they come in great use.
Regular gamers will put their experience and skills to use and try to remember the level designs for the most efficient pathways to coins and power ups. A casual gamer can jump straight in and play the game, and could probably wing it to the 3rd level or so on their first go. It is what I most enjoyed about the game as it reminded me of the days when games were not technically amazing but were very playable for both casual and regular gamers. To spice things up a bit, there is support for up to four players locally to play with or against each other – help clear the pathways for each other or go lone wolf to collect the coins for the top score.
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Hypership Out of Control has a retro theme to the game which looks fairly authentic with chunky graphics and fonts. The sprites are designed well and you will not have any problems identifying anything at super high speed. The controls can at times feel over sensitive, this is more noticeable when you return to a slower speed and moving left or right covers a large distance. There are a couple of music tracks which keep the retro theme with NES style beeps and bops. Sounds effects are as you would expect are rather basic but do keep the retro theme.
For your 80 :MSPoints:, you get a well made inexpensive game with plenty of replayability that is accessible for both casual and regular gamers. The game modes give enough variety and there are the good old highscore tables and a more modern award system to unlock for the completionist. Hypership Out of Control should be a welcome addition to any gamers collection.
You can find more information about Hypership Out of Control as well as the trail and full versions of the game on the Xbox Marketplace.
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