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A.R.E.S Extinction Agenda
Deep in the far reaches of the Junk Sector a human space station falls prey to a mysterious gas that send all robots on a murderous rampage. When a research team is taken hostage a newly developed robot called Ares is sent to the rescue. Engineered to be immune to the effects of the gas, Ares must infiltrate the stricken station, eliminate the robot menace and save the hostages. All in a day’s work for a cool retro-inspired platform hero.
A.R.E.S Extinction Agenda is a platform shooter made by a small indie developer way out in Thailand. These guys clearly played a lot of 16 bit classics such as Contra, Metroid and Megaman X, as the influences are clear to see. The game actually reminded me of a little run and gun game by the name of Abuse that did the shareware rounds back in the nineties. Thankfully the visuals are bang up to date with some very smooth and detailed graphics that look great in high definition. I’ve got nothing against modern titles trying to look like 16 bit games, but it is nice to see something that makes use of a system’s full capabilities once in a while. The game is still 2D, but the extra depth, colors and animations really set it apart. Some nice, albeit static, anime style cut-scenes further round out the package. Ares is a shooter at heart with a nice selection of guns and grenades, but platforming also plays a big role. Scattered throughout the levels are data cubes that can be hunted down for some extra info, although levels still felt pretty straightforward to me. It has nowhere near the amount of backtracking and secrets that something like Castlevania or Metroid has, for example. New skills can unlock areas on previous levels, which is great, since the game only clocks in at a measly five levels. I recall the days when episode one of a series was released as shareware, but those days are gone for good. Thus far no new episodes have been released for the game, which is a bit concerning although there is a new “bezerker” suite which can be purchased via dlc. Beside double jumping, blasting and sliding all over the place like a typical platform star, Ares also has a new trick up his mechanical sleeve. By collecting the scrap left behind by defeated enemies, Ares can recycle it into weapon upgrades and items. This is quite a nice feature, but open to abuse. Enemies constantly respawn as soon as you leave their immediate vicinity, which makes it possible to farm them for their scrap. The game recommends that you replay levels to collect more scrap, but honestly, why bother when you can simply walk back five steps and do it? Health packs are cheap to make, and while there is a limit of nine, this is more than enough to kill even the toughest bosses. Speaking of bosses, these huge monstrosities are probably the highlight of the game, since the platforming sections are very easy and the variety amongst normal foes a bit lacking. While a gamepad is almost compulsory for this type of game on PC, Ares actually works quite well with a mouse and keyboard once you get used to it. Aiming and shooting with the mouse is obviously more accurate, but jumping feels more intuitive with a gamepad. In the end I opted for a Xbox 360 gamepad using the right analog stick to fire. It feels a bit unnatural at first, but offers the best of both worlds. The game has a “Normal” and “Hard” mode available right from the start. While you can breeze through the game in two hours on Normal mode, the hard mode ups the challenge and also grades your performance on each level. The game uses checkpoints to save your progress and levels generally aren’t that long. There’s very little “instant death” scenarios as well, which is always welcome in these types of games. I found the game’s soundtrack to be quite enjoyable with a few adrenaline raising background tracks. These really captured the retro feel without straying into chiptune territory. The sound effects were pretty mundane and there’s no speech whatsoever. The game has a few Steam achievements to make you come back for more and they even snuck in some cheeky promotion by making you post on your Facebook wall about the game and developers if you wan the “support A.R.E.S.” achievement. Overall, A.R.E.S was a nice action-packed title that brought back a lot of memories. I would really have liked to see a lot more emphasis on exploration, but that’s a personal preference. A scant five levels might sound a little low on content, but if you are the type of person that is only going to play through each level once on Normal mode, then this is probably not the game for you. If, however, you can appreciate a good retro-inspired shooter and plan to play the guts out of it until you’ve mastered every aspect and uncovered every secret, then you’ll be in seventh heaven. The smooth visuals will draw you in and the action-packed gameplay will keep you hooked. There’s a demo available, so you can try it and see in which category you will fall.
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System Requirements
TAGS: A.R.E.S, Extinction Agenda, Ares, Zytron, Episode 1, Space Station, Recycle
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