Hostile World

It’s a brave new world for shmups, now that so much is possible with such simple-to-use technology. Almost everyone can throw something together nowadays, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to make something worthwhile. It still takes dedication and work to develop something enjoyable for the fans of the genre, since the audience is kind of picky in this case.

Hostile World is a space shoot ‘em up that features old school graphics and gameplay mechanics, in order to appeal to those who enjoyed similar games back in the day. It’s not the most original game out there, but as long as it packs a challenge, everyone should at least give it a shot. It’s quite refined for an indie production, even if rather lacks content as of right now.

The story talks about the usual aliens that try to subjugate humanity, and the classic hero who faces them on his own. Your final mission is to find out what happened to a certain research facility, but that can hardly be noticed in the background most of the time. The actual shooting is where the fun is at, and there’s more than enough to go around.

Since the enemies get stronger and stronger as you manage to get further into the campaign, it’s only natural that you get the chance to upgrade your ship along the way as well. Better weapons and powerful missiles become available not long after the first few missions, but even more upgrades await you further down the line. On the other hand, you need to hone your reflexes and make good use of the weapons, otherwise they are useless.

To keep in tune with the theme, the game features retro pixel art graphics, and they are a pleasure to look at in most cases. The level design is more than decent, even if it evolves kind of slowly. You can tell that the designers put a fair amount of effort into it, and the same is true for the soundtrack as well.

All things considered, the only thing Hostile World misses at the moment is content, because everything else is pretty much solid. The controls are tight, the gameplay is addictive, and it just feels so much like a shmup from back in the day.