Black Widow: Recharged

Genre: 2-Stick Shooter

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in the physical-only Atari Recharged Collection 2 bundle, along with Centipede: Recharged. It is also included in the physical-only Atari Recharged Collection 1 + 2 Dual Pack Edition bundle, along with Asteroids: Recharged, Breakout: Recharged, and Centipede: Recharged. It is also included in Atari Recharged: Volume One, along with all of the above named games plus Quantum: Recharged.)

Black Widow: Recharged (no relation to the Marvel Comics character) is a family-friendly 2-Stick Shooter released in 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. As with other games in developer Adamvision Studios’ “Recharged” line of games, Black Widow Recharged is a re-imagining of an Atari classic, in this case taking one of the first 2-Stick Shooter games ever made and updating its gameplay and presentation..

To be sure, Black Widow: Recharged still retains elements of the simple vector-based line art of the original game, but this has been fleshed out with a gradually changing color scheme, as well as some fun splat sound effects for when you take out your bug enemies.

The gameplay here is at its core pretty faithful to the original game, but this version drops the stages of the original for constantly-spawning enemies, gradually ramping things up over time. In part to offset this, players can also get temporary power-ups from downed enemies, such as more powerful shots and slow-mo abilities.

When it comes to complaints, I do wish power-ups had more permanence, and I’m a bit frustrated that the “walls” that block your movement don’t stand out more. Beyond that, the gameplay here is pretty repetitive, as was the original, but the fluid endless progression this game provides gives this game more longevity than the original.

Black Widow: Recharged isn’t quite on the same level as other similar games like the Geometry Wars series, but it is nevertheless a solid entry in its genre, and one that’s absolutely an improvement over the original game. It’s a bit too repetitive to be a game you’ll want to play for long stretches of time, but it’s a solid time-waster that fans of 2-Stick Shooters should definitely give a try.

tl;dr – Black Widow: Recharged is a 2-Stick Shooter inspired by the Atari classic. This version improves the presentation, makes progression more fluid, and adds temporary power-ups, but otherwise leaves the original formula largely intact. The result is a game that’s a tad too repetitive to call for long play sessions, but that makes for a fun time-waster.

Grade: B-

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