NEX MACHINA
A blast from the past
Housemarque’s mantra should be ‘expect the unexpected’. Hidden behind Nex Machina’s bullet-frenzied assault on the senses is a deft shooter that surprises despite its familiar twin-stick gunplay. On the surface the game is a simple shot of arcade score-chasing that calls back to 2D blasts from the past – it’s no coincidence Robotron: 2084’s creator Eugene Jarvis consulted on this – but that surface is literally blown apart a couple of shots in, to reveal a complex and rewarding test of skill. The decision to free Robotron’s arenas from their classic fixed screen enables me to explore. Shooting away scenery opens secret areas, and changes everything. Instantly I’m replaying Nex Machina not simply to rise up the high score rankings but to find score-expanding bonuses. It’s no surprise to learn one of the best new features is found in the Rankings table: selecting a points tally lets you watch a player’s highscoring run, and enables me to pick up some tips.
Simply eviscerating every alien attack wave is no longer my only objective. That’s the top-level appeal, the instant hit of exploding voxels and the ‘shoomp, shoomp, shoomp’ of bullet shots sat on top of techno beats that sends you into a transcendental state. But behind this familiar gunplay are hidden levels to unlock and a steady flurry of bonuses, points multipliers, and new weapons – a laser beam that carves across the screen, a power shot that demands you focus, target, and blow away a stream of bots in one shot.
BULLET HEAVEN
It’s at once an evolution of Housemarque’s style and a confirmation there’s room on PS4 for a sharp arcade shooter that drips its frenetic fervor directly into your eyeballs. Simply dodging and weaving to survive the alien assault soon becomes tactical foreplay to a richer experience, the real goal being to find bonus humans hidden in scenery, and doors to secret levels to boost your high score potential.
Chasing that high can lead to an occasional misfiring; often if you lose a life late in a level or against a boss, along with your upgrades – triple dash, shield, extended shot, and the like – you’ll find yourself dropping out of the game’s rhythm, and off-beat you’ll be sent into a defeatist spiral. Too far into the 100 levels to restart but also now too underpowered to compete, Nex Machina can feel trapped by its own mechanics.
The real problem the game faces, however, is the charge of being a 35-year-old idea dressed in new clothes. Like Housemarque’s Resogun – Defender updated – Nex Machina is Jarvis’ Robotron retuned, but when those revisions are a rock solid 60fps, swirling voxel storms, and an array of play-extending modes (Arena’s a score-chase challenge with gameplay modifiers, and local co-op is in from the get go), it’s hard to shoot it down.
VERDICT
“A SHOOTER THAT DRIPS ITS FRENETIC FERVOR DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EYEBALLS.”
It may be an old idea in new clothes, and yet another twin-stick shooter, but this update of a classic favourite is still essential for fans of slick arcade shooters. Ian Dean