Geneshift Demo

Although top-down shooters are a tad too impersonal, they can pack quite a bit of gore and violence, as it was the case with Alien Shooter or Hotline Miami. Obviously, the gameplay mechanics matter the most in the grand scheme of things, because they keep you coming back for more. Even a simple idea can be enough to attract a huge audience, at least if it’s implemented the right way.

Geneshift is an interesting top-down action game with RPG elements and nice graphics, in which your goal is to kill enemies, explore maze-like levels and improve your abilities as you go along. The gunplay is quite engaging as well, especially since you can use stealth whenever you do not feel like facing your enemies, not to mention the co-op mode that allows you to enjoy the action with a few friends.

Although it’s true that the game might feel like Hotline Miami sometimes, the action is not nearly as fast-paced or as punishing as it was in the aforementioned title. Hence, here you can take your time and not worry about instadeath, given the fact that your health bar allows you to bravely receive a handful of bullets. The same is true for the enemies, on the other hand, so there’s still a bit of a challenge involved.

As mentioned before, there’s a co-op mode included as well, plus online multiplayer in case you feel like taking on other people. Even if you manage to finish the main campaign and experience the whole single player component, you can still get many hours of gameplay out of the online portion of the game. Vehicles are part of the experience too, not to mention the RPG elements that provide you with a bit of freedom in terms of character development.

From a technical point of view, Geneshift is not the kind of game that has your jaw dragging on the floor, but it’s not ugly either. In fact, the level design is very enjoyable, although it can get repetitive after a while. The maze-like stages can also be a tad confusing sometimes, depending on your experience with the genre.

In the end, Geneshift has all the right elements to keep you engaged for a long time, but it needs some polishing before it can be called complete. However, it’s great to see that it features co-op and multiplayer modes as well, since they should keep the crowds busy for a long time.