I'm a big fan of shooters. Not FPSes, shooters. The games where you have little space ships and shoot fancy lasers and weird stuff while enemies fire barrage after barrage of tiny bullets. Also known as shoot-em-ups.

I have a fair collection of freeware shooters and figured I'd share some of my findings. So I plan on using this thread to post links weekly to some of these games and review them; one a week until, well... until I get bored. New reviews will be posted every weekend.

The first game I'll be sharing is Ether Vapor. If you're looking for the link, it's in that purple box.

At first glance, Ether Vapor is stunning. The 3D environments are very beautiful, although the ship model is a bit blocky. Once the game begins you're placed in a traditional vertical shooter view. The graphics are very impressive, with some beautiful lasers and projectile effects. Enemies and your ship leave trails, lasers are smooth and rounded, explosions generate particles, enemies come out from the clouds in puffs of mist... It's stunning, really. Accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack, the game is a delight to the senses (despite somewhat "average" sound effects.)

You're given three weapons, which you can activate with the Z, X, and C keys. The first is a series of shots that fire straight ahead. The second shoots at a 30' angle to either side of you using the little gunpods floating next to your ship. The final one causes you to shoot puny bullets... until an enemy comes onscreen. Then your ship lets loose with a barrage of homing lasers.

A neat little feature is how big enemies have health bars and actual HP. Another interesting innovation are the laser battles that occure occasionally. You'll be treated to a cinematic view of your ship flying through the stage as enemies come at you. You move a target around and try to take them out (and their missiles) before, well, before they take you out.

Although the difficulty of Ether Vapor isn't very high, it loves to throw big things at you and you often find yourself switching between all three of your weapons (as impressive as the laser is, a constant barrage from the first weapon can do more damage.)

The game is merely a trial. But it's very beautiful and enjoyable. It's worth downloading, at only a dozen megs or two, and is a good introduction to this genre with its slightly lower difficulty.

Graphics: 4.0
Audio: 3.0
Gameplay: 3.5
Challenge: 2.0
Innovation: 3.0
AVERAGE SCORE: 3.1

(A little note about the scoring system: unlike GameFAQs reviewers, I don't give a sub-par game a rating of 3.5/5. That's called "above average" for a reason. I give those games a 1. A game with an average score of 2.5 is just "normal." A game with a 4.0 is a definate keeper. And a 1.0? Total lemon. Don't expect to see 0s or 5s unless we're dealing with REALLY outstanding stuff!)

Obligatory screenshot flurry follows.




This post has been edited by Silverlance on 31st August 2007 05:28

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