Ahhh, the bullet hell twin stick shooter. The genre has been diminishing in recent years, but has always been a go to for those looking for a worthy challenge, or those willing to test their brain’s ability to discern individual colored dot’s through a sea of sensory overloading colored dots. Sure, this sounds like the literal definition of an acid trip or a colorblind person’s nightmare but, in Housemarque’s case it is best described as Resogun.

You may know Housemarque as the studio behind Super Stardust, their other amazing twin stick shooter for PS3. Resogun’s premise is pretty basic. You are the lone ship left to defend humans against the invading alien terrorists. As far as story goes that’s pretty much it, but this is a game best served as an arcade experience. While the go to mode will be arcade mode, there is also a single level mode and two player co-op, both offline and online. There is also a challenge mode which tasks you with accomplishing certain feats such as rescuing humans from enemy groups. There is even a levelling system you can use to unlock things such as more challenges or humans to view in the extras option. Tack on weekly challenge missions and the game becomes anything but shallow.

The first thing you’ll notice about Resogun are it’s amazing visuals. The vibrance and almost neon like look of this game is a sight to behold. Rows of orange, purple, green and pretty much any other color you could think of are fantastic to look at as they come flying at you courtesy of the alien overlords. The distinct art style is a little reminiscent of Super Stardust but with a slightly darker tone and more robust color palette. But all this beauty can come at a price. In this case, it’s the ease in which you can lose your ship in a cluster of color. This cluster comes along with taking out waves of enemies. As you take out enemies they blow up or break into pieces that while, admittedly look great, can fill the screen with colorful particle effects and left over space junk for a few short moments. This can cause you to lose sight of an enemy or floating projectile just long enough to accidentally kamikaze into a surprised alien ship, or embarrass yourself by accidentally flying into the slowest floating projectile mankind has ever seen. While this isn’t much of a problem on lower difficulties it can become a more prevalent when you bump up the challenge and have even more enemies looking to put an end to your high scoring run.

Your ship is your most valuable tool. The game has three basic ships. Each ship has it’s own set of skills. On the down side, their skill set is pretty cliche. You have your nimble but no so powerful, your powerful but not so nimble, and your well rounded not bad, not good at any one thing ship. If your not happy with these ships there is a ship editor in which you can create your own or download someone else’s. I personally am a fan of the Galaga style ship someone created. Each ship comes with a special weapon called overdrive, as well as their own unique main weapon. In order to use overdrive, you must first build up your special weapon meter by taking out enemies. I found myself relying on overdrive much in the same way i relied on the bombs; to get me out of a sticky situation. Bombs can be used to clear out all the enemies on the map at once. This can be great when you find yourself stuck between an alien horde and hard place. You begin with only two bombs so they are a valuable commodity. Both your overdrive and main weapon can be upgraded throughout the five stages via weapon upgrade pickups. The main weapon is balanced perfectly to fit well within the levels. You never feel out powered or over powered until the very end. The feeling once you get your main weapon fully upgraded is just pure bliss. Almost all enemies succumb to your main blasters in just one hit. Just holding down the shoot button makes a steady stream of projectiles that can clear the screen in almost no time. The satisfaction this experience provide’s is one of the best you can get in video games.

In Resogun you will be threading the needle between enemy projectiles while trying to take a few of those alien bastard’s out along the way, but just one direct hit from an enemy and you’re done. Adding another level of difficulty is maintaining a high multiplier to get your place on the leaderboard. This can become a challenge in and of itself, as the multiplier expires fairly quick. In most games with a leaderboard, they are often ignored and sometimes never even acknowledged. Resogun puts your friend’s scores right on the level select forcing you to stare at the fact that they are better than you at this game. It also shows your number in the worldwide leaderboard. This makes for an addictive gameplay loop that will have you playing over and over to nail that perfect scoring line just to stick it to your friends. This becomes increasingly difficult with each of the five stages but thanks to the game’s precise and tight controls you’ll never feel cheated on the game’s behalf.

Resogun’s main draw is arcade mode. You begin arcade mode with two lives and two bombs. The goal is to survive three waves (or phases as they are referred to as here) of enemies. Each level is a circle wrapped around a city which is viewed from a side scrolling prospective. At the end of the final phase sits a boss battle. Boss battles are well thought out and executed. These epic battles make for intense endings to each level. Most bosses have two forms leading you to try several tactics to take the big baddies down. One such boss started as what I can only describe as a large deformed forearm and hand, only to turn into a grey snake type thing that can box you in if you’re not careful. Another has you get in close to take out weak points only to reveal it’s second form, transforming into a top like structure that chases you across the map. The boss battles are never the same insuring you make the most of your skill set.

Housemarque does a good job of adding variety throughout Resogun. One example comes in the form of the alien’s blocky green human hostages.There are ten humans total on each level with one or two being secret humans depending on the level. Rescuing these little dudes provides a good chunk of bonus points and sometimes a shield, bomb or even an extra life. Because of the benefits humans provide, they quickly become a top priority in achieving a high score or nailing that perfect run. Actually saving them can be difficult since you must first release them from the glass case their alien captures have stuffed them in. You do this by destroying their ‘keepers’ and delivering them to one of the two pickup points. Keepers appear as a string of circular ships highlighted in green. They fly in an outlined path that ends with them exiting the stage to wherever it is aliens hangout. I never found rescuing humans to be tedious or frustrating since most rescues end in an exhilarating chase to the pickup point to get those precious points er uh, humans out of there.

Through the level design, you can tell how much thought and attention to detail Housemarque put into each level. It’s some of the most well designed levels I have seen in a twin stick shooter or bullet hell game. Whichever one Resogun falls under. The enemy spawning is on point and often leads you to the next point of interest without you even noticing it. Even enemy attack speed is well designed leaving ample time and space for navigating a dangerous maze of projectiles while still feeling like you escaped by the skin of your teeth. Some may be concerned that this is a retread of what they have already achieved with Super Stardust, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Resogun is a damn fine entry into the bullet hell or twin stick shooter genre that is more than capable of standing on it’s own.