Steam Round Up - The Master Plan, Vortex Attack and Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser

 Vortex Attack

Like many shooters before it, Vortex Attack started life in the arcades. It’s a vertical shooter where the aim is to shoot enemies and then hit the crystals they leave behind. This sends them shooting into a vortex at the top of the screen. Eventually the vortex is destroyed and you move onto the next level.

It’s a nice idea but we found ourselves getting bored with the game quite quickly. The screen is stationary with enemies phasing into it and this made it begin to seem repetitive. We also didn’t get the frantic adrenaline rush found in many bullet hell style shooters.  It’s certainly worth a look for hard-core shooter fans as it does try to do something a bit different but there are many better examples of the genre out there.

Overall 5/10

Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser

From a vertical shooter to a horizontal one with the wonderfully named Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser. Taking inspiration from a host of 70’s and 80’s anime shows the game puts you in control of a huge flying robot that can link to other large robots to make even bigger flying robots.

It’s a fun and frantic game and there are lot of different weapons and combinations of things to try out. The style of the whole thing can only be described as joyful and it certainly proves a blast in small doses. The only major issue is that it can be completed in a very short amount of time and there isn’t really the depth or surprises on hand to keep you coming back for more. If you want something fun and full of pop culture references to blast away though this could well be for you.

Overall 7/10

The Masterplan

Escape and heist games seem to be the thing of the moment and The Masterplan is another to add into the mix. From a top down perspective you need to plan and execute your heist and escape leaving as little evidence as possible before the cops arrive .

You start off small by taking down bars and kiosks before moving on to many bigger and better things. There’s a lot at work under the hood here with civilians running off to call the cops and people deciding to get brave when they have a gun pointed at them among the issues to contend with. Planning is key and things can descend quickly if you rush in.

Sadly, while it’s trying to do all the right things the controls are very clunky and trying to carry out actions at speed seems counter intuitive. Issues like small icons and the fact you can only draw a ‘select all box’ by moving from top left to right and down (or else it simply won’t draw a box), really hinder the experience. Closing a door without having your character getting stuck the wrong side of it really shouldn’t be this tough either.

There’s fun to be had an it’ll no doubt become smoother with updates but it probably could have done with staying in Early Access a bit longer. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it though as the potential on show is huge

Overall 6/10