Wells Demo

Steampunk universes are quite common in video games, although they look pretty silly in movies, given the fact that it’s difficult to create convincing environments and costumes. You only need to think about games like Bioshock or Arcanum to realize how engaging well-made steampunk worlds can be, especially if the writers do a good job when it comes to the story and the characters.

Wells is a 2.5D platformer with a lot of action and a colorful world to explore, in which the main goal is to kill enemies and overcome a variety of obstacles. Obviously, there’s a unique collection of interesting weapons at your disposal, and they all come in handy when nasty foes try to stop your progress. The story is not particularly impressive, but then again the focus is on the shooting instead.

As mentioned before, you can collect all sorts of interesting weapons as you advance through the levels, but they sometimes have different behaviors. Hence, even if all the weapons come with unlimited ammo, you have to remember that they overheat if you fire them for too long. Some have higher firing rates and overheat a lot quicker, while others can be used for extended periods of time without negative side effects.

Since this is still a platformer, jumping and running are important parts of the game, especially when you have to avoid obstacles or navigate tricky sections. Your character can run, jump and slide when the situation requires it, as well as shoot his gun from a variety of positions. Since the mouse is used for aiming, the whole thing feels very fast-paced and intuitive.

The 2.5D environments feel a lot more spacious than regular 2D ones, even if you are still limited to two dimensions when it comes to movement. Hence, you do not have to worry about sidestepping in order to shoot enemies or perform tricky jumps. The graphics are quite nice as well, although the backgrounds feel a bit too repetitive sometimes.

All things considered, Wells is a pretty polished platformer with more than enough action to go around, and the mechanics feel responsive and well-integrated. Hence, it should provide you with quite a challenge if you are a fan of old-school shoot ‘n’ gun games.