Capsized

I first heard about Capsized when I received a coupon for it in my Steam inbox, but didn't look at the game seriously until a few months later, when it was a daily deal. It is ultimately a choice that I regret, as is occasionally the case with a game, because I would feel better had I used the coupon and paid more than the daily deal price - Capsized is a good enough game to be worthy of more of my money than it got.

The game takes place on a quite hostile alien world, after you and your crew have to evacuate your damaged spacecraft. At first the game seems simple enough, just rendezvous with the rest of the crew, set up your distress beacon, and get out of there. Sure, there is native wild life to be aware of, but nothing too bad. That is, until you come across the locals, who are more than content to shoot first and ask questions later. While floating bugs, charging dog things, and hatching headcrabs like buggers are all bad enough on their own, particularly when you encounter them in tight spaces or some of those really big floaters, it's the natives that you'll come to fear the most. Those little guys with their spear guns aren't bad, the ones that can fly are annoying, the big guys with grenades are tougher, and the flying priests with homing attacks and the ability to absorb any projectile you fire at them and flip it back at you are the worst. Combine all of those aliens together, add in wildlife you thought you could handle, and season that with deadly traps and plants that spit out poisonous gas, and you've got a fun time. So you'll find yourself essentially committing alien xenocide as you clear a path to your captured crew mates, disable the alien technology that scrambles your distress signal, and, eventually, get off this crazy planet.

I just realized this: If you're wearing a spacesuit, why would poison gas hurt you?

Onto the gameplay! Capsized is an indie action platformer. It is a 2D game wherein you go about exploring levels, finding new weapons, secrets, and temporary upgrades, all the while trying to complete the mission's objectives. Sometimes the goal of a level is to simply get from point A to B. In others, you must retrieve items and bring them back to a central point. In yet others you must go around to various parts of the map and do something special, such as destroy an alien temple because it's interfering with your ability to contact a rescue ship. All the while you must fight through various aliens, traps, and the environment itself.

One of the more interesting portions of Capsized is the high degree of movement you're allowed, which impacts the way the levels are designed. In addition to your basic left/right/jump, the standard stuff for pretty much every platformer, you can wall jump off a near shear wall, use your grappling hook with it's elasticity to slingshot yourself higher, use your jetpack, that is, when you've acquired some fuel for it, to float about, or just use your gravity ram to boost you up by firing it at the ground. The physics in the game, when mixed with the combination of large open spaces, floating islands, and tight corridors that make up the levels as a result of your freedom of movement, can easily result in getting shot clear across that map by using your gravity ram on an enemy, and then suffering the recoil from a very high place, then grabbing something with your hook, to swing even further. The movement, and these non-weapon tools you always have, are quite fun, and if you desire, there is even an armless survive mode in which these are your only tools to defeat enemies, relying on your mighty boots, generous use of the ram, or picking up lighter items to shoot at enemies with your hook.

Unfortunately, you might encounter a few of these as you go whizzing around a level.

Of course, most of the time went you encounter enemies you'll be shooting them. There are a total of 8 different weapons in the game, each with an alternative mode of fire. You will always have the Blaster, a simple single shot weapon that can be charged up to do a large amount of damage. The Pulsar is next, which can either be used as a machine gun or a shotgun. After that is the Immoltator, which primarily acts as a flamethrower, but doubles as a reflective field for incoming projectile attacks. The Plas-Mortar is a rocket launcher first, followed by a slower, more arced shot for the alternative fire. For a concentrated shot of pure damage, you can use the Particle Rifle, though if you're unsure of your aim, it does have a shotgun mode as well. I rather enjoy the Ion Repeater, which primarily fires a single arcing projectile for good damage, though the secondary fires three at once, and significantly faster, because there aren't impacted by gravity as much. When you're in a panic and can't aim straight, just reach for the Nano Rifle, which homes in on your targets. The alternative fire is the same thing, but fires off several nanites at once. The most powerful weapon though is the Quasar-Array, which fires a static black hole that sucks up anything in it's way and deals massive damage. The alternative fire to that one creates a controllable black hole which you can drag around the screen for a period of time. Just awesome.

I'll say it again. Just awesome.

While you'll either find weapons just laying about, or occasionally dropped by enemies, you'll also occasionally stumble across powerups in much the same way. There are a total of three of these, and while they do not last very long, there are very useful to have, particularly when you take on some of the largest enemies in the game. An energy shield, a swarm of nanobots that attacks any enemy that ventures too close, and an anti-gravity field that lets you zip around the level without consuming your jetfuel can all make life a lot easier.

For a bit of an additional challenge, or just for the completionist in you, you can always got back to a level you've already beat and attempt to uncover all the secrets a level has to offer, which are these little stars hidden alcoves around map, where the trick is to find the hidden passages that lead to them. If you want a top score, you'll need to get all the secrets, play the game on it's hardest difficulty, and beat a level quickly, otherwise you'll lose a part of your star rating in each category. Also, don't die, which is far easier said than done in this game.

Secret areas often have some of the best loot, but the later ones are hard to get to.

There is plenty more to this game that I haven't covered, mostly because it falls into the category of things I don't cover in my reviews. Those would be things like coop or duel mode, as well as a few other arcade modes, though I did mention armless. If those are your sort of thing, then there is plenty this game has to offer you. Otherwise you're looking at about 5 hours to make it through the campaign, which in and of itself is worth $5 or more. So if you're looking for a game where you can romp around an alien world slaughtering everything in your path, because everything in this game is your enemy, and do it all in a 2D environment, then Capsized is the game for you - 8 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 8/10

Suggested Price: $5+