LaserSmash!

Video games are usually designed to either help you have fun or to annoy you, depending on how you enjoy spending your time. The early days of gaming featured insane difficulty levels even for somewhat casual games, especially when it came to shooters and platformers. However, the trend is not entirely lost, since there are still people out there developing difficult games.

LaserSmash! is a retro shooter inspired by Astrosmash!, a classic game developed for Intellivision. The gameplay is about as simple as it gets in the genre, since the only thing you have to do is shoot the objects that fall from the sky without getting destroyed in the process. Granted, the challenge gets tougher later on, but it’s a gradual increase that allows you to get accustomed.

There’s no real story to talk about, which means that your attention can be entirely concentrated on the actual shooting. Your ship is only capable of shooting a single type of ammunition as well, which means that the whole thing is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, the debris comes in multiple varieties, which adds a bit of color to the experience.

There are falling asteroids that split into pieces when you shoot them, as well as guided missiles that follow your ship around until you manage to shoot them. However, the most dangerous of all are the nuclear bombs, because you are wiped out of they reach the ground. Sometimes they fall too early and too fast, on the other hand, which is a bit annoying and frustrating.

Your ship also has a teleport ability, although it is not very precise. It can come in handy whenever you need to cover a lot of ground as quickly as possible, especially when nuclear bombs are involved. As for the graphics, the game looks pretty decent, although seeing the same background and ship at all times can get a tad boring. Thankfully, at least the controls are spot on, and you can even use a controller.

In the end, LaserSmash! is obviously not an original production, but it could cater to the needs of older gamers who remember the classic it tries to copy. On top of that, there are still plenty of shoot ‘em up fans out there.