"In PowerUp, you are the last of the human race, your only company is your spaceship’s AI assistant, and she just wants you to follow your last orders – fight the invaders to the end! PowerUp has an immediate strength. It reeks of nostalgia. I felt like a little kid again, playing those impossible levels on my SNES, and never getting tired of losing and starting all over again."
This week we are joined by listener Jason (@albirhiza) to discuss our Shmup Game Club: Giga Wing 2, Velocity (Ultra), Radiant Silvergun, Power-Up, and Sine Mora. Campaigns, tactics, high scores, and more are covered as we dissect some of the more contemporary additions to the genre.
GotGame Staff Writer Josh Boykin takes on the single-handedly developed space shooter Power-Up by Psychotic Psoftware.
PowerUp is an entertaining 2D sidescrolling space shooter, inspired by old school shoot-em-ups such as R-Type, Hellfire, and Project-X. While it does little to innovate, it offers up plenty of retro-styled sidescrolling thrills with plenty of carnage, nice visuals and huge bosses. While not perfect – and best played on higher difficulty settings – it’s a strong first game from Psychotic Psoftware that’s well worth the price of admission.
Psychotic Psoftware is a one-man game studio comprised of Mike Hanson, a game artist by trade. This background in game art shines through in Power-Up , with lush backgrounds, creatively designed enemies and huge bosses reminiscent of the old R-Type games. Another similarity to R-Type is the suitably-throwaway sci-fi plot, casting you as the sole survivor of the human race, out for revenge against the reptilian monsters who wiped out your planet. It’s classic B-movie stuff and sits well with the style of the game, as does the suitably retro soun...
