Gaming - Son of Scoregasm
The Defective Inspector tackles a sequel (and many biscuits) and reviews Son of Scoregasm...
There are not many games which boast space baddies, king’s biscuits and blasting your way to freedom but here we are today with Son of Scoregasm. A trigger-happy arcade-esque game designed to test your speed, acuity and overall tenacity for scoring a climatic finish. (See what I did there?)
Son of Scoregasm is the follow-on title from the original game Scoregasm in 2012. The creator, Charlie Knight, seems to know what he is doing as the essence of Scoregasm continue to resonate in Son of Scoregasm without replicating the title completely, which is tough to do. When you make games like these is very easy to accidently fall into a trap of making very “samey” levels and gameplay so being innovative enough to make two solid titles is something worth noting.
You can tell Charlie knows the genre, every level is different and dynamic without being completely out of the ordinary. You are gently plopped into the waters of gameplay from the first level then a progressive difficulty curve starts to show. But because it’s progressive you don’t feel disheartened at the one life, one shot, one chance mechanics. True I didn’t get all that far during my gameplay, but I primarily blame that on my inability rather than the game itself. Even though I am a woefully inadequate player I kept enjoying my attempts and slow and steady progress through levels.
The most obvious change from the 2012 is the graphics. Rather than throw some clout into a graphics engine the creator steps down and goes for a very neon 80s like geometric approach, which works! As the game resonates with the older days of arcades the retro graphics I feel more comfortable with this change in graphically design. Despite the simplicity everything is tightly regulated and seem to work. The small amount of 3D work is appropriate and compliments gameplay rather than dominating it.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge something, the pseudo plot. Now games like these usually don’t have one, your goal is to be the best at a certain level and to dominate the high score board (which I did once… No braggin’). Initially the tutorial discusses the king of England has lost his biscuits and you need to get them back for some reason. Which is fine I suppose as my initial response to bourbonicide is to frantically rage out in space. But the game decides that there are actually biscuits, you find them, you fight them, you dominate them. I felt like some demented Mr Kipling and I LOVED it. Hell there are even 7 different endings to the game, I never made it to any one of them but I am told they are there!
Is this game exceptional? No it’s not, but it’s nice to see a well-rounded, fun, exciting and fairly challenging title to whittle away some of my spare time. It won’t win any awards but that isn’t what shoot ‘em up games are for! They are for high scores and senses of achievement, which I never got really… I suppose you could say the title is a bit misleading. I never achieved scoregasm, son or otherwise, but I am scoreroused enough to keep playing with it until I do.
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