Whilst I don’t entirely understand the internet fixation with either Tesla or Lovecraft, or why they seem to go together like Cannon and Ball, Rod and Emu or Andy Crane and Edd The Duck, at least it’s led us to perhaps my favourite 10tons game yet. For that, I’m grateful.
If you’re new to the 10tons formula, it’s twin stick blasting mixed with ridiculous upgrades – never *quite* game breaking upgrades but certainly for a few moments each round, there’s invariably some ridiculous level of things blowing up or going splat happening.
In Tesla Vs Lovecraft’s case, this comes courtesy of Tesla’s mech. Once or twice a round you’ll find yourself having collected all the parts of a mech, summon it up and it’s time to tear through absolutely everything in sight. It’s remarkably satisfying.
Most games would be content with just providing a mech and being all “alright, that’s plenty” but that’s not the 10tons way. In-between rounds, it’s time to start levelling up and kitting out Tesla with even more firepower, even more armour and stuff and things that glow and go bang.
There’s a silly amount of customisation in there, well above and beyond the call of duty and because in Tesla Vs Lovecraft, power ups all stack, it won’t be long before the screen is a blur of glowing lasers and the innards of whatever old gods popped by to cause trouble. I love it! It’s just so unecessary and so over the top, I can’t help but grin at it.
You’re already handed some firepower fairly quickly but there’s movement upgrades for good measure too. Tesla can ‘teleport’ in Dishonored-Blink fashion beginning in one of the very early stages so a good part of the game is spent shooting stuff then *pop* blinking to safety (or as is more likely, into an even bigger throng of suit wearing frog things).
Once you’re a few stages further and you start racking up upgrades, new inventions and perks, it’s just flat out silly. The good kind of silly, obv. A very neon good kind of silly. My kind of silly.
There’s a bit of story and a vaguely roguelike structure glueing everything together, not much in the way of surprises in that regard. Travel from start to finish on the map, there’s a few different tasks to be completed depending on what location choose but eventually, it all comes down to exploding cosmic nasties using glowing neon laser beams in some fashion.
There’s also a couple of difficulty levels to progress through. They’re less about whether you prefer the game easy or difficult and more about finding the most enjoyable pairing for whatever your current Tesla is kitted out with and amount of things you fancy shooting.
I wouldn’t recommend going straight to one of the higher levels without grinding some power ups and perks first though, when the bulk of enemies work on the Gauntlet ghosts principle of “loads of the buggers running at you at once”, it’s wise to be prepared.
So yes! Tesla Vs Lovecraft is fantastic. I’ve been returning to it every couple of months for a fair while now for when the more sedate and methodical Neon Chrome and Jydge just won’t do. It’s 10tons doing what they do better than most teams in the business and whilst their twiddling with the formula doesn’t always land (Undead Horde), when it does it’s magnificent.
If anyone prefers something that leans ever deeper into the roguelike structure, has co-op multiplayer and just generally more of that than vaguely linear, Tesla Force is everything that’s great about Lovecraft Vs Tesla, plus all that stuff.
It’s good! Just, you know, I’m personally a lot happier and more relaxed around the Lovecraft Vs Tesla progression. I do like to feel like I’m working towards an ending of some sort so a lot of the roguelike structures in games now do very little for me. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Go on, give it a go. It’s available on nearly everything at this point! I’m most at home on the PS4 (as ever) but aside from a bit of trickiness with the teleporting, the mobile version is great too.
Highly recommended.