Zotrix

On paper, this would be one of my favorite games. I love top-down arcade shooters, and resource trading/management, and upgrade loops. Zotrix has all of these things, and it does them all in a very mediocre way. The shooting, where you'll spend most of your time, is incredibly boring and easy. Enemies will slowly march onto the screen, single file, where you will immediately wipe them all out by firing in a straight line - even without any upgrades. As the game grows in difficulty (at a glacier pace), occasionally two lines of enemies will come out simultaneously, which means you might miss a few, so you'll get fewer credits at the end of the level. You're never really in danger, and you easily become disinterested. This is not how you should feel when you're alone in space against thousands of aliens. Resource trading is also devoid of complexity or meaningful choices. Different stations sell different resources at different prices - but you can preview the price of any resource ...

This game is pretty good. Frustrating? Yes. Difficult. YES. In space? YES! The only thing I don't understand is the optimization of the particle effects. My CPU and GPU (i5 and the highest radeon series) are equipped to handle that stuff, yet I get severe lag when too many particles are on the screen, with a density of 20 parts/cm^2 or greater. I know, one can turn the particles down, or even off, but I don't need to. My computer can handle what the game is doing, but for some reason the game is way, way too taxing in terms of particle effects. One UI thing that bothered me was the fact that you can go to the resource trade menu from the equipment store menu, but not the other way around. It's nit-picky, but that's what critiques are about. The graphics are amazing, so I have no issues there. The music is one of my favorite parts of this game. I would list the artists here, but there is a metric ton of people behind the music design, relative to how small the game is. There are al...

The current state of the game does not support Xbox controllers well. For strange reasons the game requires a lengthy gamepad calibration the first time you activate the Xbox controller in game. The calibration stage is cumbersome yet producing bad calibration results, and it is impossible to steer and aim in the game in any meaningful way. Bad impression regarding the gamepad controls, as I have yet to see a gamepad compatible game on steam that requires calibrations. Most games just work with gamepad right off the bat. Maybe the developer try to ensure precise aiming, by mapping the range of the twin sticks to the corners of the screen of the current frame size? Anyway, stay away from using gamepad for the moment before a fix is available. However, the graphics and sounds in game is pretty superb, albeit the in game dialogues can not be fast forwarded/skipped. If you do do that, please make an effort to make the dialogue brief, relevant, and interesting.

This game has serious balancing issues. It is very easy to get overpowered gear very early in the game. This makes completing the game tedious and boring. The trading aspect of the game can be completely ignored. After finishing the first 10 to 15 missions there is not much more to upgrade and you'll basically have an endless supply of resources and money. Some of the upgrade items (the different missiles i.e.) and all the lower tier gear is completely obsolete. The story doesn't matter at all. It's just escort mission after escort mission. The enemy types and attack patterns repeat over and over again. When you are in the upgrade shop it is not possible to directly compare the items in the shop to the ones you have already installed. There are also still a few bugs in the game. Often when the last wave of a level is finished it takes one or two minutes of flying through empty space until the level finally ends. The basic idea of the game is very cool. It makes me sad to see so much wa...

This game looks good at first, and I like what it tries to do, but it needs alot of polish. The missions have you grinding through levels you've already done. The resource trading system allows you to get the best equipment not even halfway through the game, making the aforementioned grinding even easier and more boring once you get past the initial difficulty curve. It really needs an autofire feature. There are lots of strange interface quirks that weren't ironed out. The music is cool at lest.

A excellent well done addicting retro action shooter. The game play brings back the feel of arcade games from the 80's. With a very nicely done techo soundtrack, colorful graphics and sound. The game hits the spot dead on how retro arcade shooters should be done. Highly recommened for action shooter fans.

A twin-stick vertical shooter-- what a novel idea! Unfortunately it is wasted on the most boring, repetitive arcade game ever made. While I like the intuitive concept of non-linear mission selection, equipment stores and resource trading, any pilot worth his salt will have enough to purchase the best ship, and the best equipment, after just a few missions, rendering the entire in-game economy completely worthless. Once you buy the best shield, you never lose it-- even if it is fried during battle it will be back again for your next flight. The game's array of drones, bombs and missiles are totally superfluous, except to hasten the destruction of enemy waves, since nearly everything is destructible in seconds with the standard blaster. If you destroy enemies too quickly, you effectively throw off the game's scripting and have to twiddle your thumbs for upwards of a MINUTE until the mission catches up and starts throwing enemies at you again. GOD. Speaking of missions, there are 40 ...

Game looks like it might be fun if they fix the controller support. Xbox 360 controller here, no excuse for getting THAT controller support wrong...patch it please so I can play and I will reccomend as long as it's a decent game.

Laggy, quite boring missions, controls feels flimsy. Great concept but not quite where it could be in terms of execution.

The text was very slow and couldn't be sped up or skipped. Everything looked very complex in the very beginning and made me want to avoid it all. Controller didn't work right. You could probably play with it but things like " press the "A" button to continue but it was actually left on the dpad" would make it very difficult to figure out.