Nex maCHina
A blast from the past
released OUT NOW! Reviewed on Ps4
Publisher Housemarque
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 2D blasts from the past but that surface is blown apart a few shots in to reveal a complex and rewarding test of skill.
The decision to free Robotron’s arenas from their classic fixed screen enables you to explore. Shooting away scenery opens secret areas, and changes everything. Instantly you’re replaying Nex Machina not simply to rise up the high score rankings but to find score-expanding bonuses. One of the best new features is found in the Rankings table: selecting a points tally lets you watch a player’s high-scoring 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. But behind this familiar gunplay are hidden levels to unlock and a steady flurry of bonuses, points multipliers and new weapons.
It’s at once an evolution of Housemarque’s style and a confirmation that 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 is Defender updated, Nex Machina is Robotron retuned, but when those revisions are a rock solid 60fps, swirling voxel storms, and an array of play-extending modes, it’s hard to shoot it down. Ian Dean
There is a steady flurry of weapons and points
Eugene Jarvis, creator of Defender and Robotron, was creative consultant and “primary feedback-giver” on the game.