I spent some time playing a preview of the soon to be released Xbox Indie Game Panic Attack. Read on for my impressions.
Panic Attack is a retro themed platform game where you play as Hug from DeRail Games previous game Jump’n Bounce. The aim is to make your way through the platform style levels to the exit, ideally within the recommended time limits to earn Gold, Silver or Bronze medals. The game uses a simple control system which allows you to bounce higher or lower depending on the situation as well as turbo boosting past hazards. Hazards along the way such as spikes will cause instant death resulting in you being sent back to the start or the latest checkpoint you reached.
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The game has the feel of the recently released Super Meat Boy where skill and timing can be essential to completing a level. Though the two games are not the same in level design and layout, Panic Attack is more open space in design, it does share some elements with quick restarts and infinite lives which give the ‘one more go’ feel. There are a total of 56 levels, 52 of those are normal levels which start of fairly easy and increase in difficulty as you progress. The final 4 levels are ‘Pain’ levels which have a *much* higher difficulty and should not be attempted until you complete the normal levels.
As mentioned the game follows a retro theme with fairly faithful graphics from the 8 bit era. One thing that especially stood out was the music by 8 Bit Weapon and ComputeHer, they sound great and have a really authentic feel to them, it was like playing my C64 back in the day! The sound effects are also in keeping with the theme though the death/respawn ‘jingle’ did start to grate on me after a while.
Panic Attack is expected to be released in November and will cost 240 :MSPoints:. If you are a fan of action platform games or found Super Meat Boy a little too hard then this is a game you should definitely keep an eye out for. You can find more information on the homepage at http://derailgames.no/.
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