Blue Rider review

No story no long-winded cut scenes press A to play and pull the RT to shoot.

Blue Rider is a simple top down shooter boosted again by simple upgrades, collect the bombs as you destroy your enemies to help defeat end of stage bosses, pick up health orbs to heal your small blue ship damaged by attempting to evade your enemy fire and then remember to collect rampage orbs to boost your score to the top of the leaderboard (although there isn’t actually a leaderboard in the game which is a shame)

The simple controls make this a pleasure to play as your are only really thinking about how to get past each section of the stage and find out what awaits you at the end of level. The first boss, and it’s not a spoiler much so read on, started out firing the same energy orbs at me the start of level grunts did, but as the damage rained down on him from my blue ship his energy weapons changed, got destroyed, rockets came at me, then homing rockets and well I killed him at this point so hope that’s all he was going to fire but it was a great little battle, for me anyway. Shoot everything though as some secret aides can go with you on your journey through the different worlds (stages)

There are 9 stages and I’ll admit I am yet to complete them all but loving the challenge and as there is no difficulty the knowledge that I might not finish them all is killing me. Literally!

Graphics are on point for a top down game, the scenery is bright and just detailed enough to be there but not be distracting. Enemies are varied and easy to distinguish so you know if 5 energy orbs are coming your way or one, and if you need to start circling them or stay and shoot to hold your ground, then again I found myself retreating many times too.

Sound is good but has no bearing on my rating as it was there, intense but not so much it made me feel like the battle was any harder (if that makes sense to you all)

Small elements like shoot the blue (no it’s not your friends just because it’s the same color as your ship) will aid your progress (took me two stages to figure it out though)

Doing this will also throw up a few nice surprises that I won’t spoil for you. Oh and don’t die, you have to start the stage again!

SUMMARY

This is a great shooter and I loved it, simple to play and most importantly great fun, it’s life will be determined by your determination but it’s the lack of replay value in leaderboards, accomplishments, challenges or goals that lets it down, oh and did I mention it’s less than £8

( now £6.39 until 4/11/16)