Preview - Assault Android Cactus

by Jon Evans

Format previewed on Mac
Developers; Witch Beam
Publisher; Witch Beam
Formats; Available PC, Mac, Linux
Release Date; Q1 2014 (Currently in Early Access)
Ever since my first hands on with Assault Android Cactus at Eurogamer last year, I have been keen to delve deeper into this manic twin stick arena shooter. The game has been green-lit on Steam and is now available. This is the early access version and is evolving steadily as the developers get feedback from the players.

I have been playing the early access version of the game, and am mighty impressed. The premise is that you are part of an all-female Android police team who have responded to the calls of a stranded space freighter and discovered a plague of malfunctioning maintenance robots who have gone awry. You have to battle these robots, make your way through the crippled space ship, the Genki Star, find the brain of the ship and fix things while avoiding becoming a bullet sponge. 
Each arena is a stage on that journey. Your android has two unique weapons, a main continuous use weapon which has unlimited ammo, and a secondary weapon with more power and unique abilities, but with a slower reload to limit use. You dash around the arenas, avoid the varied robots that crawl, jitter, fly and stomp towards with your demise in mind. All the time you move and fire your weapons, your batteries are used up. There is no death in this game, after all you are an android and are not alive, nevertheless the sense of urgency which the battery forces upon the player is palpable and a strong part of the gameplay mechanic. You can get 'hurt', however by taking too many hits or getting to close to certain enemies and if you take too much damage you power down temporarily, freezing you on the spot while you manically have to pump the fire button to re-energise your character. If you do run out of battery then you permanently power down, ending the game (see video below).
All the while you are moving around, this is important as keeping still means almost certain death on harder levels, you also get the opportunity to collect power-ups. Small white orbs are dropped by all the enemies as you destroy them and these contribute to the overall power of your weapons, scaling them up as you collect more. Also dropped are larger temporary power-ups, that are colour coded according to use. Blue ones freeze any current enemies on the spot, allowing to time how you pick them off, red ones add extra firepower to your main gun (my favourite) and yellow ones are like red bull; they give you wings, allowing you to zip around the arena at high speed. There is a good risk reward system here. Get too close to enemies, or take too many shots and you lose these power-ups immediately. 
The depth to the gameplay does not stop there, however. Each arena is graded according to how well you clear them; not taking hits, never powering down and piling up chain shots all contribute to a higher grade. If you can avoid power downs and maintain a permanent chain throughout the level you achieve the highest rating, the S+, and unlock extra modes in the main game. This adds a massive extra level of playability, as the difficulty curve becomes quite steep. Couple this with the shifting levels, the variety of enemies and how they attack you, Assault Android Cactus becomes extremely nuanced. 

Speaking of the shifting levels, the variety in design is excellent for such an early version of the game. It makes for much more tactical and thoughtful gameplay than first impressions suggest. You could just wade in all barrels blazing, but that wouldn't help to achieve the higher grades. Clever use of the alternate weapons at just the right time (useful for the bosses), thinking ahead when moving, learning the habits of enemies and second guessing them, taking advantage of the weaknesses of the robots at just the right time, using the shifting levels to block line of sight, learning the patterns of bosses and discovering which android works best in which arena make this an onion layered challenge of the highest and most exciting order. Nevertheless that doesn't stop the game being fun and approachable for the less experienced player. 

The game looks beautiful, and blends the feel of a retro shooter with the looks of a next-gen console game. The graphics are pin-sharp, and have recently been demoed on a massive 4K  screen at  the SMPTE 2013 Symposium. the soundtrack is poppy and pleasing, adapting and changing to your gameplay and the art design and characters are fun and don't take themselves too seriously, edging on the cutesy anime style. It is very hard to remember that Witch Beam are a three man team. This is quite an accomplishment. 
It is important to note I played this game with a PS4 controller attached to my Mac. I tried playing with a mouse and WASD buttons. and it was very challenging and felt a lot slower. This could just me being a sad, old console whore-boy, but it's worth playing with twin stick controls to get the real fluid movement.

The good news is that Witch Beam plan to release Assault Android Cactus on PS4 and Vita as a cross buy game (the thought of this makes my shiny little head explode). You can buy it on Steam as an early access game here. There's a wealth of fan service on the Assault Android Cactus website showing development of the game, creation of extra characters based on fan feedback, art and design assets and regular updates on new patches and features. As I said in a tweet, I do think this game will topple Resogun from the PS4 retro shooter throne. Watch this site for a final score and updated review once the game is released. Pew! Pew!