Super Destronaut – Punching Robots Club

I’m not saying I really enjoyed the first Super Destronaut or anything but the time from spotting Super Destronaut DX2 had launched on the PlayStation store to me scraping together a few quid to buy it could be measured in minutes.

I can’t say I was disappointed either.

A chaotic scene from Super Destronaut DX2, amidst a shaking screen and chromatic aberration, the player's spacecraft destroys one of an incoming wave of colourful glowing enemies.

You can probably see why, right? It glows.

It’s a game that doesn’t need much of an explanation, it’s a very traditional shoot ’em up, think somewhere between Space Invaders and Imagine’s Arcadia (you can pick which format) – waves of enemies find their way onto the screen, you shoot them. That’s the deal, that’s as much brainpower as you’ll need.

Because everything is super big and super chunky, it looks absolutely fantastic in motion. It’s far, far, far from the most challenging game ever made (the other one, really) so it very quickly turns into a game of sitting back and enjoying the light show as the firework-like explosions tear across the screen.

A screenshot from Super Destronaut DX2. An almost Factory Records yellow border surrounds a play area, the play area is a wireframe landscape with wireframe structures in the distance. At the forefront, waves of very colourful, very chunky simplistic pixel enemies are blown apart by the player's chunky rocket ship.

Much like other Petite Games stuff, Super Destronaut DX2 manages to hit a lovely sweet spot of just enough challenge to feel like I’m in control of the action and way more than enough shiny to satisfy my flashy-light addiction. It rarely demands too much of my skills but really appeals to my love of glowing pixels.

There’s a couple of modes to mix things up a bit, nothing drastic (best score possible in X minutes and the like), more than enough to stop me getting bored and I am, as anyone who has played stuff I’ve worked on before now, certainly a fan of that sort of bite size arcade gaming so it works for me.

All told, it’s a very Rob-will-like-this game and indeed, I do like it. A lot.

As usual, I’ve been playing the PS4 version. Other formats are available. I can’t really see there being much difference between them.

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Please sir, I cannot tell a lie. Sometimes, I really just want my videogames to let me switch my overly thinky brain off and allow me to run round a maze and explode things. The prettier the colours, the better. Scratch that! The more colours, the better.

I’m not an especially competitive person so stuff like kill/death ratios mean nothing to me. Ranking and whatever? The same. I do enjoy watching a number go up but that’s about where that particular thrill ends. “Ooh, that was a 7, love a good 7, me. An 8? Oh yiss!” like the embarrassment that I am.

I have no shame in admitting that when I first spotted Super Destronaut: Land Wars, I had my fingers crossed that it would live up to my hopes that here was a game that would not only let me watch a number go up but also run around a maze exploding things into lots of colours. Readers, it did not disappoint.

I’m being a bit silly here, obviously, but it’s really important to remember that it’s 2020, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I’m perpetually fluctuating between upset and angry (so much so I’ve taken up an MMO). If ever I needed a game that didn’t require anything of me, it’s right now.

In less interesting times, I doubt I’d hesitate long to take a gander at Land Wars, in times this interesting, I bloody well crave this sort of thing. And Land Wars hits the spot beautifully.

It’s a ridiculously neon affair, more Tron than the recent VHS tribute brand of neon that games have adopted. It’s the right kind of neon, yeah? Colourful, glowing, gratuitous. Enemies are huge, chunky pixel, also neon, things (this is definitely not a game where you’ll be squinting to see where enemies are hiding, that’s a definite). They bounce around a bit, act a little bit threatening but even on the higher difficulty levels they are often little more than target practice.

I know I probably sound like a broken record but this is all fine and desirable, I’m not slating the game here. This is what I want from it.

There’s a few rudimentary challenges you can indulge in if you prefer a bit of structure (they rarely stretch far beyond “shoot 5 baddies with this weapon” or whatever) or there’s a selection of slight difficulty adjustments if you want the game to push back at you a bit but this isn’t Destiny or something here. It’s a four quid neon shooty lazer maze thing with no ambition to be anything more than that and hand on heart, I love it.

It’s not a game you’ll learn to master, it’s not a game that prizes mechanics or depth or anything that isn’t lasers in a maze. It does everything I hoped it would, as nicely as I hoped it would.

In these tumultuous times, I’m not asking for much else so put those neon lasers into my face and let’s forget about the world outside for a while. Molyneux only knows, we could all do with that right now.

With your host, Rob Remakes

Tag: Super Destronaut

Super Destronaut DX 2

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Super Destronaut: Land Wars

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