Geneshift

Review

You have been at the top of your game for many years. You’ve said it yourself several times, “I am the crème de la crème, when it comes to security”. Well, this one took you by surprise. An estranged genetic research facility has offered you a job! Would this job be the cherry on the cake? It really doesn’t matter, as you happily accept this new challenge. Welcome to Geneshift!

Geneshift is a top-down action shooter game developed and published by Nik Nak Studios. It currently offers a campaign mode (which can be played solo, or in COOP with up to three of your friends), as well as several multiplayer modes for you to enjoy.



The campaign consists of 10 missions to beat in this current Early Access version, with four levels of difficulty, which are:  Playful (easy), Standard, Hardcore and Insane.  You must complete the entire campaign on standard difficulty to unlock the hardcore, and complete the hardcore to be able to play on the insane difficulty.

On each of the maps, you’ll control a character dressed in a red suit with a black cape, and your goal is to place and detonate a bomb at the end of each level to beat it. Be ready for it, as it will not be an easy ride!  Within each of the levels, your characters will have to reach specific checkpoints. Most of them are displayed as a small radioactive icon, while a few will be displayed as a larger circle with a black device in the middle. As soon as you reach them, your progress within that level will be automatically saved, and thank God for that! You’ll also be able to purchase additional ammunition, weapons, chemicals and vehicles when you reach the larger circle, but not when you get to the small one. There are plenty of objects to pick up along the way: medipack (to heal your wounds), green syringes (which will automatically upgrade your best skills trait to the next level, with 5 levels in total per skill), a light blue circle (which will regenerate your mana gauge back to full),  as well as additional dashing power boosts, bundles of notes, and of course plenty of weapons to pick up to help you to get rid of all of these rebels and mutants you’ll face. You can also ride cars and run over enemies, or even shoot missiles at them (depending on the car). The other thing I like is that most of the cars have power boosters, which, when activated, propel your car faster toward the enemy. Or you might fancy using one of the ramps to duplicate one of Evel Knievel’s stunts and still eliminate enemies when you land. Road Kill!

To come back to the skills tree, there are 36 skills available in total and each of these skills can be upgraded up to five times. As I mentioned above, when you pick up a green syringe it will automatically upgrade your most powerful skill until the skill reaches the level 5. However, there are these twin red canisters within each of the maps; pick them up and you’ll be able to manually assign skill points to your favourite skills.    

The gameplay is fast and fluid; you’ll move your character by using the WASD keys, and your mouse to move the red target to shoot your enemies. What I really like is that you always have a line between your character and your target. If the line is green, it will indicate that you have a clean shot at your opponent, and red will mean that something will obstruct your shots, such as a box or wall, for example. The rebels will shoot at you on sight and you might find yourself in a bit of a pickle more than once. Thank God you have these dashing power boosts to avoid their bullets! Use them wisely, as you only have a few at the start of each stage and it will take several seconds to regenerate each of them. Each time you eliminate an enemy, you’ll be awarded money, which you can use to buy weapons at some of the checkpoints, or unlock new skills, cars, chemicals and/or weapons at the end of each stage.  You can climb on boxes to gain height; check out the boxes with a highlighted blue line, they are the ones you can climb on. The keys 1 to 5 and F1 to F5 will be your skills to activate when needed; I hope you have great agility in your fingers or you’ll die quite a bit! That’s not all; when you arrive at the last point to position the bomb, you’ll be attacked by wave after wave of mutants.  As they vanish, they’ll leave a spinning blue dot at the place they fall. That will represent their souls, which you have to pick up and drop where the bomb will be placed. It is usually around 50 on the standard difficulty, and let me tell you, it’s totally chaotic and fun!

At the end of the level, you’ll earn XP, additional money and be rated with either a big A or something slightly lower, maybe C- (just like me)!

There is also the availability to play against the bots (the IA is pretty good, too) before jumping into a multiplayer server. Most of the official servers are in the US and Europe, with a couple in Russia, as far as I can see. Personally, I did not jump into one to test the game yet.

There a plenty of options in this game; to be honest, you can customise pretty much everything and even create your own map with the Map editor.  I must say the developers have done a great job!

Great graphics and it’s easy to get into the game. Plenty of options to choose from, and the game offers great replay-ability.  In terms of the asking price, well, it’s a bargain as far as I am concerned; it’s worth every penny! The only small negative for me is that I’d like to see more maps. Apart from that, I have nothing else to say!


Positives

+ Great Graphics
+ Campaign (Solo and COOP) & Multiplayer modes
+ Good number of weapons, cars and items to pick up
+ Plenty of options
+ Map editor
+ Great Price point
+ Achievements and trading cards

Negatives

- I’d like to see more levels

Review Summary

Geneshift is a superb, fast and super fun top-down shooter game - a must have!

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Zeepond Rating: 9/10

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