Energy Invasion

Genre: Arcade Brick Breaker / 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1

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Review:

Energy Invasion is a game that presents an odd combination of 2 genres: the Arcade Brick Breaker (games like Arkanoid and Breakout), and the 2-Stick Shooter. Like Arcade Brick Breaker-style games, you’re bouncing a ball around on a paddle while clearing blocks on the screen. However, unlike those other games, the ball itself isn’t what breaks the blocks. Rather, bullets fired from the ball are what does the damage.

With such a strange approach to the genre, one might expect an equally inventive presentation, but actually, this game is pretty sparse and uninspired in its presentation, with a generic-looking space theme. It’s visually not bad, but it feels unfinished, and the relatively quiet gameplay doesn’t help matters either.

As for the gameplay itself, it’s interesting, but it does feel like more care could have been taken to acquaint the player with how the game works, since it goes against some pretty longstanding genre conventions.

In addition, in integrating two-stick shooter mechanics, those come with their own set of expectations, like being able to fire a constant barrage of bullets… which simply isn’t the case here, with your fire rate frustratingly slow.

In the end, Energy Invasion is an interesting idea, but the game feels unpolished and incomplete. If more time was spent working on its presentation and making its unique premise more inviting to the player, this could have been something interesting. As-is, it just feels like it’s still in the experimental faze.

tl;dr – Energy Invasion is a cross between a 2-Stick Shooter and an Arcade-style brick breaker game like Arkanoid. Unfortunately, the game feels unpolished and not especially welcoming to players getting used to its odd concept.

Grade: C-

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