Many Xbox Live Indie Games try to capture the noglista of old retro titles that have a fond place in gamers’ hearts. For me, the retro era of video games is about incredible insane premises and totally crazy gameplay and level design which made those games so memorable to me. This is why I love Fun Infused Games’ Hypership Out of Control. It just doesn’t throw a retro artstyle on the game and call it good. The game is actually completely and totally insane with a great sense of humor, while at same time being a fantastic game in its own right which makes this a must have game in your XBLIG collection.
Hypership, really, is a standard shoot ‘em up (or “shmup”). The game lives up to standard shmup design as it’s hard as hell, relies on you replaying levels over-and-over again to memorize level design, it focuses on a score-based system, there’s a ton of temporary power-ups to find, and the game is fast. But good grief is this game fast! As in most shmups, the game never lets you stop and it always pushing you forward. But Hypership takes it to the next level as the game not only never stops, but goes faster. The game goes insanely fast, and it’s really hard to describe just how crazy it can get. But trust me, it goes incredibly fast.
One of the standard design philosophies I mentioned about shmups is that they focus on you memorizing level patterns, but a lot of times the level design in shmups are poor and sometimes unplayable with no key points of interest which you can use to bookmark the level in your memory. Hypership, on the other hand, has really fantastic level design. The levels are so well made that every time I died, I would never accuse the level of being “cheap” or “unfair” and I would totally see that it was my fault that I died. This is the ultimate praise I can give to any video game for its level design.
Visually, the game looks like a retro shmup that got frozen in carbonite and got released in 2010. The game looks the part, and the presentation looks good all-around without really standing out too much. But what does separate the game from others in a presentational standpoint is just how crazy the game is. Why do some of the blocks in Hypership have eyes? Who cares, answers the games. The thing we still murder you if you give it the chance. Ok Hypership, you respond, why are there giant basketballs floating around that kill my spaceship if I hit them? Just ‘cause, replies the game cheekily. The game follows no real logic with just how crazy it gets, and the game will constantly surprise you with its insanity over-and-over again. The game is also incredibly well-written and is pretty funny, which is practically a requirement for some reason on all Xbox Live Indie Game these days.
The game has a ton of content here for its $1 price-point. There are five different games modes from “Super Speed”, which quickly increases your speed even more so than the normal mode to the point where you can barely control your spaceship, to “Coin Down” where you start off with “99” coins which goes down at a steady pace and if it hits “0” you die so you have to constantly be collecting coins to survive. The recent update added the insane “Reverse Mode” which plays the levels backwards, which actually works well and speaks to how well the levels are designed if they still work in reverse. The crazy thing is that you can use Reverse Mode in any other of the other game’s modes including the two I mentioned above. So you can play “Super Speed” in reverse, which is completely crazy! All of the different modes are great, with Reverse Mode being a very welcome addition to the game. Hypership also has a weird visual filter you can turn on where the background is a crazy color that constantly changes, a pretty standard global online leaderboard, and 4-Player co-op for any mode in the game which is really cool. The game is just packed with content, and the game will last you quite a while.
Hypership Out of Control is easily one of my most favorite shmups ever. The classic shmup gameplay with an extra dose of super speed with fantastic and memorable levels and tons of great content makes it easily one of the best that’s available on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, and one the best overall in the genre regardless. It’s hard to not love a game as crazy as Hypership Out of Control, and I definitely recommend you purchase it so you too can experience its insanity firsthand.