Control Shift

Local multiplayer is not to most popular way of enjoying video games at the moment, especially since it’s so easy to connect with your friends online nowadays. However, consoles still feature this option in many games, and the PC gravitates toward the trend as well. It may not catch on in the style of Double Dragon or similar old school games, but there’s potential for success nonetheless.

Control Shift is a local multiplayer arcade game in which up to four players control colorful spheres, which have the ability to use a few power-ups and shoot projectiles at your enemies. Not only that, one of the key aspect of the gameplay is that you must conquer territory and protect it from the other players, which keeps everyone moving at all times, especially when the maximum number of people are sharing the same map.

On the other hand, it must be mentioned that the game does not feature any kind of tutorial or instructions, which means that it may take you a while to understand how everything works. In fact, many features remain a mystery for quite some time, especially when it comes to how territory works or what are the victory conditions for the different game modes.

Speaking of which, the good thing is that you can mix things up a bit every now and again by changing the game mode. Whether you play Story, Arcade or Invasion, the rules change and it’s quite easy to enjoy a different kind of experience. Hence, you can fight for territory and try to conquer special tiles with computer chips on them, or you can just hunt for other players and score as many frags as possible.

In regards to the graphics quality, the top-down perspective limits the amount of detail available in every scene, but the game does not look bad at all. It could have used more diverse environments to prevent boredom, but the special effects look pretty nice, especially when it comes to explosions. The music is pretty generic and unimpressive, but it’s not of any real consequence in a local multiplayer game.

In the end, Control Shift can get you out of a jam if you are having friends over and you need something fun to occupy your time. On the other hand, it also has quite a few flaws, not to mention the annoying lack of explanations and tutorials.