NeuroVoider

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter / Roguelike

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Indie Gems Bundle: Explosions Edition along with Steredenn: Binary Stars and Transcripted.)

NeuroVoider is a 2-Stick Shooter with Roguelike elements that has you playing as a human brain taking over a robot and rampaging through hordes of other robots, collecting the spare parts your destruction leaves in its wake, and using them to upgrade your machine.

This game’s visual presentation is good, with solid pixel art graphics that actually change how your character looks based on each part you swap out, and with visual effects that are nicely varied and feel very satisfying – when you get a really good new weapon, it does a great job making you feel like a bad ass.

However, while the visuals are good, the sound is wonderful, with a techno/chiptune “dark synth” soundtrack by Dan Terminus full of digitized vocals that gives this game a great futuristic cyberpunk feel. This is complimented by weapon sounds that only add to the fun of shooting off volleys of ammunition, with the payoff of a delightful popping sound every time you bring down an enemy.

The gameplay here is every bit as fun as the presentation, with a wide variety of weapons and other parts to give players a lot of freedom to customize their own personal death machine. Players start out by picking one of three classes and a special ability, but as they progress through their run, they’ll be collecting a huge number of components to adjust the stats and payload of your machine, and there never seems to be a shortage of good options.

The game does a good job rolling all of this into the 4-player co-op too, having players share a screen during the fighting, but then splitting up the menus so everyone can manage their own parts in-between levels. There’s also a daily challenge for those looking to best the scores of others online in a mode where the otherwise-randomized levels are locked-down into one configuration per day.

There are a few complaints I can make, though. Firstly, because the stage design is randomized, there doesn’t seem much rhyme or reason to it, resulting in a lot of wandering around until you stumble into the reactors you need to destroy to finish the level. This can at times result in the reactor spawning laughably close to your starting point, something that becomes even more annoying when you wander off in the opposite direction in search of it.

The other issue with this game is I found it to be a bit on the easy side, thanks in part to enemy AI that isn’t very bright – you quickly discover that the easiest way to get through levels is often hit-and-run tactics and hiding behind cover, inching out until you get a few more enemies blindly rushing towards you, and then jumping back to safety.

However, despite these flaws, NeuroVoider is still an absolute blast to play, with a huge amount of variety and customization paired with a wonderfully visceral action-packed experience. If you’re a fan of Two-Stick Shooters, Roguelikes, or even just good Action games, you absolutely should play this game.

tl;dr – NeuroVoider is a combination of Two-Stick Shooter and Roguelike that has you fighting an army of robots, stealing their parts, and then using them to upgrade your own capabilities. It’s an incredibly fun game with great co-op, a fantastic presentation, and tons of variety and customization. The randomized level design and enemy AI could have used a bit of work, but on the whole this is an absolutely fantastic game that should be owned by anyone who enjoys a good Action game.

Grade: A-

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