A classic shooter, Laserpitium offers some straightforward gameplay with a higher challenge. Not to be confused with a bullethell, this is a simple shooter with two types of shots and three playable ships each with their own abilities. There is a good amount of variety to the lengthy campaign too.
There isn’t an outstanding gimmick to its gameplay, but it is still playable and enjoyable even though you will die a lot. Don’t expect to get very far with your first couple attempts as the gameplay is designed around experience, memorization, and some twitch response time. Two-player local co-op also helps notch down the difficulty, but it is never a cakewalk even when playing on the easier settings.
Leaderboards and co-op is limited to local play, which is a bit of a bummer, but the lower cost of $15 justifies these features. The hand drawn visuals stand out against the parallax background but ultimately lack animation. Similarly, the main menu screen is stark and doesn’t even have music so the missing layers of polish is playable but doesn’t put the presentation over the top in any way. Again, it is simple and straightforward but that doesn’t make it bad.
There are also unlockable cheats but they don’t make sense. For example, if you clear the game on the highest difficulty without dying, do you really need to unlock infinite lives? Although cool, this list of unlockables are not balanced with the player’s skill.
By no means is Laserpitium the best shooter ever created but it also is not a bad one – just plain and straightforward. But fans of the genre will easily get a weekend’s worth of enjoyment from this game especially if you have a local co-op buddy at your side.
Also Play: Dogfight: A Sausage Bomber Story
Better Than: Hyper-5
Don’t Forget About: Drainus
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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