Edwin Crump
A few years ago, I decided to give up my smartphone. It was consuming too much of my time and headspace, I thought. I yearned for the simpler days of text messages on a tiny screen and a phone that was used as well, a phone. It didn’t last long; smartphones are just too damn convenient. But perhaps if I had managed to stay away from the lure of iOS or Android, I might have been able to avoid the fate of so many other humans in Nex Machina.
In a world where people’s obsession with their smartphones has made humanity oblivious to an uprising of artificial intelligence you alone are equipped to take on the mechanical hordes in this gorgeous, voxel-based twin stick shooter.
Developed by PS4 launch title Resogun creator Housemarque with creative input by Defender mastermind Eugene Jarvis, there were high expectations for what this unique coupling could deliver. And deliver they have. Nex Machina is Relentless, frenetic, kinetic, instinctual and an essential addition to any twin stick or arcade-junkie’s game collection.
As a twin stick shooter you move through a variety of stages fighting for a high score. Levels are not procedural, though there are other roguelike elements and mechanics. Each is broken up into many different arenas. But in each the aim is the same: destroy your enemies and get to the humans before they do. In many ways Nex Machina echoes Resogun extremely closely, from the voxel aesthetic to the urgent pacing and fantastic soundtrack. But I never felt ripped off or that they were too close to each other. Instead, Housemarque have reimagined the mechanics in a way that makes them feel both fresh and familiar.
Through many playthroughs you become extremely familiar with how enemies come onto the screen, and so it becomes about finding the most efficient pattern to take them out. This critical path through the game will vary according to how you want to approach it. Are you aiming to get through in the shortest amount of time possible, or are you concerned about chasing that high score? Your strategy will be different for each, and will influence your play style in relatively significant ways. Each level ends with a boss, who usually sprays the screen with a huge amount of bullets that only increases as their health goes down.
This leads to highly stressful moments, where you are essentially playing the game by instinct and feel, as trying to take in all the information on the screen at once is almost impossible. Trying to avoid bullets while still getting hits on the boss leads to heights of stress that are deeply relieved after their death.
You get only a certain number of lives in each playthrough, but, like in a traditional arcade cabinet, the ability to continue. Choosing “continue” resets your score, so it is a hard decision if you are three levels in to choose continue and give up potentially millions of score points. On the one hand you don’t have to replay all the sections that you’ve already invested in, but on the other your points are back to zero, your multiplier is reset, and you lose any weapon and dash upgrades. Watching speedruns of this game will be fascinating, and I will be interested to see what methods become dominant over time.
As mentioned, like Resogun, Nex Machina is voxel-based, meaning the entire game world is made up of little cubes. It looks spectacular and it is a major step up over Resogun’s implementation. Sometimes though, exploding voxels and other explosions and effects can get in the way of seeing what’s actually happening on the screen. This lead to a few cheap deaths that I still resent.
There’s local co-op, even on the PC, which is fantastic to see. You can play the game in single levels, in single-level score attack mode (which has variants to keep you coming back) and traditional arcade, where you run through the levels consecutively. The only thing I think is missing is some sort of suspend or quick save functionality in arcade mode. Sometimes I’m halfway through a great runthrough and have to simply drop it due to real-world demands. It would be nice to be able to save it and come back to it, rather than having to start all over again.
Resogun, which I bought in 2013 near the Playstation 4’s launch, is on my PS4’s hard drive to this day. Similarly, I can see that this game is going to stay installed on my PC’s hard drive for a long time as well. It’s a fantastic combination of adrenaline-fueled gameplay matched with spectacularly sumptuous visuals (that, by the way, ran perfectly on my PC). It’s no surprise that both the modern and vintage masters of the genre have created a fantastic game, but it is delightful that what they have come up with is this good. There’s something special about Nex Machina, and you’ll have to see it for yourself.
Released: May 2017
Rating: M15
Platforms: PC (Windows 10
Genre: Shooter, JRPG
Developer: Housemarque
Publisher: Housemarque</p