Space Runaway Review (Steam)

In the run-up to the release of the multiplatform game ‘Wanted: Dead’ on February 14th developer Soleil released one of it’s mini-games Space Runaway as a marketing freebie on the Steam Store.

Space Runaway is a 16-bit style horizontal shmup that has clearly been inspired by genre legends like Gradius, Pulstar and other. No to surprising as the game more or less portraits those games in the virtual arcade it is featured in within the world of ‘Wanted: Dead’. Even though it sticks to the tried and tested formula of gaining power ups, one hit kills and checkpoints the game definitely got some original features.

For a side project within the whole Wanted: Dead project the amount of care put in to this title is pretty amazing. The graphics have an authentic 16-bit look but with high fidelity and popping colors. Especially in later levels. Same goes for the music, pumping 16-bit beats with catchy melodies which, to my knowledge, could easily be replicated on actual 16-bit hardware like the Neo Geo or SNES.

You have one ship for you to attack 7 short but extremely challenging stages. To help you along the way, you can pick up two different powerup icons. One is used to swap between the three available weapons. The other is used to either attach up to two drones to you ship or boost your main weapon or speed. You can also pick up the ‘B’ icon to add another screen clearing bomb to your stash.

You can choose between a regular gun, a laser or a homing laser weapon. Of course, each weapon has its particular pro’s and con’s. But I found the homing laser to be fairly useless in it’s non-upgraded form, making it even hard to survive the first waves of enemies. The laser is a bit more useful with the ability to hit multiple targets with one shot. But the most reliable weapon still is the regular gun with it’s slight spread and rapid fire rate.

And you really need all the help you can get as this game is brutally hard. Combining the Gradius-like game structure with larger sprites is a cocktail of doom. Apart from sending waves of fairly quick enemies at you, the game does not mind to send you through tight corridors filled with turrets at the same time. This game is made to brake you and you need to invest time to learn enemy patterns and memorize the paths. A lot of practice definitely makes you undeniably better at it. you need a lot of meditation or self control to stand this kind of abuse. But when everything clicks an level memorization kicks in, this can be a very satisfying experience.