POSTED 22/7/16


SUPER MUTANT ALIEN ASSAULT

Cybernate/Surprise Attack

One leap forwards, two leaps back, we’re waiting for the crate leap forwards...

While we’ve been busy watching pop eat itself over the years, the games industry has been doing much the same. We’re at the point where a game inspired by older games – in this case Super Crate Box - has inspired another game, which in itself harks back to that distant time known simply as ‘the eighties’.

Super Mutant Alien Assault, a progression of the less super mobile version, subscribes heavily to that school of thinking that games should punish you – for further reading please refer to Super Meat Boy. There’s no mollycoddling save for the odd tutorial, you’re just plopped in space and it’s fight or die.

The story? Three spaceship fleets get the hell out of Dodge super-pronto, with the last of the human race in stasis. You’re but a humble robo-servant, yet it falls upon whatever your robo-equivalent of shoulders is to save the meatbags from extinction.

So begins an unlockables frenzy, as you jump, dodge and shoot at relentless invading alien scum, who have an annoying habit of getting all radioactive, thus embiggening them and making them even harder to eradicate. The longer you take, the more glowy foes you’ll have to deal with.

There’s little in the way of pattern memorising here, as each of the mere (but punishing) 12 levels utilise a degree of random generation and increasing amounts of schlep quests while taking care of core business. At first it’s a grind to start unlocking weapons and special moves with any sort of decent grip. But as you tame more of them things start to gel somewhat – plus you can couch co-op it with a friend (or enemy if you’re so perversely inclined) to up your odds of survival.

The world didn’t need yet another pixelised throwback, but Super Mutant Alien Assault is here now – and it belongs.

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