So far the only thing I would add to the reviews on this is that the game feels like a mix of descent and tron with a wonderful level up system that makes the game pace fast, but comfortable. admittedly piloting using hotas is tricky at first but once the settings are tweaked the game is amazing fun with hotas or mouse. I normally dont get into games that dont have much storyline and are more or less team deathmatch vs. the computer, however this games pace mixed with a rather competitive AI makes it a very enjoyable experience. The game difficulty can be adjusted to fit prefered play style and i must admit being a fan of tron the visuals in the game are very appealing.
NeonXSZ
- Release Date:
- Feb 22, 2016
- Developer:
- Intravenous Software
- Publisher:
- None - Independent
- Platforms:
- Windows Mac Linux
Game Tags
About This Game
When Flynn was first sucked into the totally unfamiliar alien landscape of Tron, his world and everything he knew was turned upside down. Nothing made sense for him anymore. The rules of life had changed. He had no idea how anything worked, how he would survive, or how he might escape. Welcome to our take on that concept, NeonXSZ.
In NeonXSZ, even normal gaming conventions and rules break down. This new world is initially bewildering, cruel and unforgiving. If you expect it to hold your hand through a tutorial and then spoon feed appropriately leveled enemies in your direction then you are in for a harsh awakening. There's nobody to tell you what to do here - nobody to guide you - and the moment you try to fall back on what you've learned while playing other games you will die.
We wanted to bring gamers a totally fresh gaming experience and move far away from traditional game mechanics. To survive, you will need to be smart, stay alert, play safe, and explore this strange new frontier in order to understand and uncover it's depth, mysteries and secrets.
You are a glitch in the system; an anomaly. If you have any hope of escape you will need to blend in and gain power. Eventually, if you have what it takes, you will journey deep into the very heart of the machine and ultimately meet the Gatekeeper. If you can defeat his challenges you might even escape, but we doubt it. Nobody has ever escaped. (Addendum: The legendary 'swstar' was the first and only known user to escape.)

What is it like to play?
The core gameplay revolves around zero-gravity, high-speed, spaceship dogfighting. Think jet fighters with the ability to turn on a dime and strafe in all directions. Dig deep enough, and you'll be able to create anything from blisteringly fast fighters to slow, heavy, tank like destroyers and specialize them with hundreds of lootable upgrades.
You might choose to dominate the open-world or progress through dozens of ever more challenging arenas. Either way, it will be a personal journey of experimentation and discovery.

FEATURES:
NeonXSZ features 100+ hours of gameplay and content set within a completely open-world populated with nearly one thousand persistent enemies from four warring factions, each with unique procedurally generated artificial intelligence and skill.
Loot, buy and sell hundreds of upgrades and gadgets and use them to specialize dozens of ships to suit your preferred play-style.
Test your strength in dozens of hand crafted Challenge Arenas with remarkably agile, physics-based, ship controls and combat.
- Highly customizable:
Manually tweak everything from enemy intelligence, skill, and damage through to the look of your ship and even the look of the world around you.
Slow everything down with a game-speed slider that allows players of every skill level to enjoy the game. It's like permanent bullet time for those that need it.
- Real Loot:
Kill a hostile and it will drop parts for every piece of equipment it has installed, not random loot. This means that defeating a higher level enemy guarantees it will drop higher level predictable loot.
If you see it, you can loot it, fly it, and use it.
Screenshots
User Reviews
A bit disappointing. From what it seemed from the videos, it felt pretty much as a cool open-world Descent-like experience, so I was looking forward to it pretty much. Well, that was delivered at first. Fighting is pretty fun, weapons/powerups are cool, leveling/upgrading/trading is good too, but very soon after the initial experiences, bad things started to come up. First of all, the world is pretty much empty. Aside for looking for adequately-leveled enemies and upgrades, you have no reason to explore the world. Stations are modelled after several templates and therefore most of them looks mostly the same. There is nothing to collect, find, or anything. Offered missions in ports are also very template-ish, so nothing super interesting. The only thing saving this are the challenges present in the centre of each sub-world. Every one of them is different and makes the gameplay at least bit less the same. Some of them are somehow bit confusing, and in some I found myself aimlessly wander...
NeonXSZ has captured my attention in a way that games rarely seem to manage these days. It is absolutely packed with gameplay and player choice, is highly polished and very configurable, both in terms of game settings and aesthetics (how many games do you have that let you change the theme of the game world?). It's a mouse driven 6DOF shooter (yes, mouse and keyboard is [i]by far[/i] the best control method) in an open world cyberspace environment, so even though you have an ultimate goal you also have a high degree of flexibility in how you achieve it. New ship components and even new ships are introduced at the perfect rate and make you feel always like you're making steady progress. Two (well, four) warring factions make things even more exciting...rarely do you fly for more than a minute without encountering some firefight taking place that you can ignore or join as you wish. In short, NeonXSZ is a pure joy to play. It's pretty, it's fun, it's packed with options...if you ask...
If you have a 3D controller (6DOF) and think you'll be good here...Think again. This game was built in the Unity engine and while there is some crude settings for sticks/gamepad in game, the dev does not support the function AT ALL. You'll manage to get a few of the axis's to work, then one or two will be FUBAR. http://www.neonxsz.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=228&p=1706 The Dev says "trying to play Neon with a Joystick is like trying to drive a car with a banana". I say "Trying to fly a 6DOF game with a mouse and keyboard is like trying to drive a car with your feet". This game looked like a nice modern spin on Descent/Forsaken type games. Too bad it has such a lousy limitation on control devices.
Simply not fun. Literally no explanation of game mechanics or systems - kill an enemy and pick up random orbs that do things because reasons. Also enemies are super bullet-spongy. I don't mind a grind if there's a concrete reward, or if the game takes time to explain, you know, what that reward actually is. This game doesn't do that. Objectives are super vague - go to this map marker and, well, that's it, really. Controls are very twitchy - it literally feels like your ship is coated in bacon grease. I played all 3 Descent games back in the day, and this is nowhere near that level of quality. It shows some promise, but right now it's not there yet.
This is a pretty simple game, but it's really addictive for some reason. If you just need to shoot things or want a good RPG without a super confusing plot, this is the game for you. Edit: Half way through this turned into a 3d maze racing game. Instead of shooting things, collecting loot and leveling up, I now have to shoot several finicky, akwardly placed switchs, race through an extremely disorienting maze in 3d space and run into a door that just slammed in my face. I don't find this mechanic fun at all. It is extremely frustrating and boaring. I had to change my rating to not recommended. I've been working on one of these stupid things for two hours now. There might be as many as 20 more of them. If I keep playing, I may reevaluate the game when I get to the end, but it's not looking good.
The start of the game is ass. Your ship starts out as ass. Your main gun (well, the first gun you have and always will) is ass. The harmless data transporters you're directed to start smacking around have bulky shields and high maneuvrability. Anything larger than you to start is going to hit hard, and boy, once the beams of lightning come out, do they hit, and they'll send your ass straight back to the docking panel. You're a nothing and the world is unkind. There's nothing stopping you from venturing out to wings of the station containing enemies a dozen levels above your own, where, predictably, enemy ships will mop the station, quite predictably, with your ass. But you persist. You bag a few kills, or fire off a few helpful shots at the bad guy a bunch of green ships ganged up on. You've collected a small planets' worth of subtly glowing loot balls. You land at a docking panel and buy yourself the lightning gun. Ah, the great equalizer. No longer do you try to peg some vessel fo...
Pretty good but not at all like Descent based on one simple fact. Newtonian physics. Inertia might be great for a wide open realistic space sim, but in a corridor based 6DOF game it's actually kind of a nightmare. There is however an auto-braking option, which acts a sort of inertial dampener. This improved my experience greatly. Anyway It's pretty fun. Upgrade system is a neat twist. Good music. Weapons feel and sound cool. Explosions are satisfying. Nice ship designs. Some solid ship management as well. Gear has mass and power usage, etc.
I haven't played much of Descent or its ilk, I find Sid Meier's Pirates kinda dull and repetitive, and loot-grindy shooters like Borderlands have never held much appeal for me. Yet I STILL love this game, which is a testament to just how extremely well-executed it is. A one-of-a-kind RPG-FPS mash-up that's refreshingly free of fluff and boring bits, due to an easily traversable game world and consistently exciting combat. The developer is really on to something here, and I hope to see similar games released in the future-- but for now, there's nothing else like it in existence. Absolutely check this gem out, you're getting a stupid amount of value for your money.
Nice Descent-like 360 degrees gameplay with RPG elements and progression. Runs perfectly on Linux, rock solid (never crashed) and stable 120 fps (vsync enabled with 120hz screen), no tearing and good cores scaling, you can feel that the engine is a piece of art :) I like it and I'm going to put more hours into it. Get it now while its on sale but also at full price it'd be worth it.
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System Requirements
Minimum
- OS *: Windows XP \ Vista \ 32 or 64bit
- Processor: 1.8 Ghz single core
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 256 MB Direct X 9.0c compliant video card
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 450 MB available space
- Additional Notes: Mouse and Keyboard (Xbox 360 Controllers supported but not recommended)
Recommended
- OS *: Windows Vista, Windows 7,8,10 (32 or 64bit)
- Processor: 2.6Ghz dual core
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Geforce 9800GTX+ / GTS 240, Radeon HD 4830 / HD 6800M, Intel HD4000
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 450 MB available space
FAQ
How much does NeonXSZ cost?
NeonXSZ costs $9.99.
What are the system requirements for NeonXSZ?
Minimum: Minimum: OS *: Windows XP \ Vista \ 32 or 64bit Processor: 1.8 Ghz single core Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: 256 MB Direct X 9.0c compliant video card DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 450 MB available space Additional Notes: Mouse and Keyboard (Xbox 360 Controllers supported but not recommended) Recommended: Recommended: OS *: Windows Vista, Windows 7,8,10 (32 or 64bit) Processor: 2.6Ghz dual core Memory: 4 GB RAM Graphics: Geforce 9800GTX+ / GTS 240, Radeon HD 4830 / HD 6800M, Intel HD4000 DirectX: Version 9.0c Storage: 450 MB available space
What platforms is NeonXSZ available on?
NeonXSZ is available on Windows PC, macOS, Linux.
Is NeonXSZ worth buying?
NeonXSZ has 76% positive reviews from 91 players.
When was NeonXSZ released?
NeonXSZ was released on Feb 22, 2016.
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