Bad Egg Studios presents a fantastic arcade shooter that draws strong similarities to…well, I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Though the market may be over saturated with games of its ilk, Pew Pew Pod does bring a little variety to the table, but you’ll have to jump into your Pew Pew Pod in order to appreciate it.
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Flying with the left stick and shooting with the right is a control scheme that will be very familiar to veterans of this genre. While many twin stick shooters feature a single weapon that is modified by various power ups in-game, Pew Pew Pod grants access to a wider array of guns right out of the gate. Pew Pew Pod lets you start with four different weapons, easily chosen with the touch of the corresponding trigger/face button. The mapping for these lasers is extraordinarily easy to pick up from the beginning, as the color of the weapon is the same as the color of its assigned face button. That only applies if you are willing to take the risk of lifting your thumb from the right stick, of course.
The yellow weapon is a photon torpedo that slowly blasts groups from afar. Blue is a plasma cannon that has a medium rate of fire, but these lasers ricochet off the walls. The red weapon is a shotgun laser that fires multiple shots, proving devastating at close range but dangerously slow if you’re surrounded. The green weapon is a machine gun laser that claims a high rate of fire and tears foes up from afar. There are two randomly appearing power ups: 4-way cannons and weapons overload (which allows you to fire twice as fast). These two boosts can be combined; both timers are refreshed if one is picked up later.
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Enemies appear in five different forms. Darts, like their namesake, are swift but bound to one direction of travel at a time. Snakes are wandering foes that are reminiscent of certain games that might have appeared on your old cell phone. BB’s are slow pack-hunters, a foil to the randomly floating Pacers. Finally, Aces are quick seekers that perhaps pose the greatest individual threat.
There is a healthy grab bag of game modes, each of them accommodating up to four local players. In Arcade mode you have three minutes and three lives with which to destroy as many hostile units as you can. In Survival mode, you also get three lives, but you gain points not from killing but from simply not being killed yourself. Zones mode poses a goal that even popular FPS games can get behind: remain within the confines of a zone to gain points; after five seconds the zone disappears, only to reappear in another location. Waypoint mode again grants you three lives, but this time the motive is to collect as many of the targets as you can. Think Fast is a clever mode for a twin stick shooter, and it pays homage to Simon Says; last as long as you can with three lives, following rules (appearing on the screen and accompanied by a chime) such as Don’t Shoot or Fire Red weapon. Versus mode requires more than one player, as it sets you against your buddies in an outer space free-for-all.
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The game is dazzling, with enough eye candy to give a raver cavities. The frame rate seems to do no wrong, the colors pop, and the sound rocks. Using royalty-free music site Opuzz, Bad Egg blended fast gameplay with a soundtrack that might have you loading the game just to have another listen. All the action takes place in a modest window, which only enhances the frantic tone of the shooter, but the particle effects of all the pyrotechnics are manageable enough to prevent headaches. The HuD and targets (Waypoint/Zones modes) change colors to reflect your current weapon, so you’ll have an easier time knowing which laser you’re zapping. If and when you are overcome, the packed screen clears, granting you a fresh start.
With support for up to four local players and Local/Global scoreboards for Arcade, Survival, Zones, Waypoint, and Think Fast modes, Pew Pew Pod challenges all comers to bring their best lasers to play. At 80 :MSPoints:, Pew Pew Pod isn’t a poor man’s Geometry Wars, it’s a legitimate contender for the twin stick shooter crown.
You can find more information as well as the trial and full versions of the game on the Marketplace.
Review by Iggypu.
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