Cyberpulse allowed me to codify an unspoken rule of mine. I’m calling it the ‘Second Or Death’ rule. It goes thusly: if a score-based game has three levels of success and the game is good, I will not be able to settle for anything less than level two. Cyberpulse can breathe easy on that one. As soon as I see my score falling below level two, I’m mashing that restart button as fast as I can. Yeah, yeah, sparkly effects, robot lady voice, just bring on the points!
I put that down to a couple of things. First, Cyberpulse keeps things absolutely simple. There’s a simple gameplay loop, a bunch of enemies to use it on and a whole stack of levels that explore it, inside and out. Secondly, it keeps up the pace brilliantly. Restarting is lightning quick. Mash the B button and you’re back in. Frustration is alleviated by efficiency. While I have some minor nits to pick in the fine details, these don’t disguise the fact that Cyberpulse is, simply, a big explosion of fun.
Information Super-Highway
The first thing you’ll notice about Cyberpulse is the visual design. It makes you want to put on some nineties-era sunglasses. But I want to put that aside for the moment to talk about the core gameplay. Cyberpulse takes the concept of a twin-stick shooter and then messes around with it. The left stick is for movement but the right is for a kind of gravity well mechanic. Point it in a direction and an enemy will fly off that way once colliding with it. With any luck, they’ll hit a deadly firewall. The challenge at that point becomes dodging a mass of bullets while flinging hapless enemies in the right direction, with boss fights being a challenging, but satisfying, culmination of this.
Cyberpulse wrings as much as it can out of this simple loop over its fifty or so levels. Sometimes it’s a classic ‘destroy all enemies’, other times it locks off your well, causing you to rely on special skills, and so on. It’s kept fresh. It also helps that movement feels fluid, helping with the dodging, and there’s enough weight to the effects to make destroying enemies fun. If I had a gameplay note, it’s that I wish the right stick was trusted a bit more. It simply alters the direction of gravity, leaving the left stick to handle both movement and ship direction. The right stick spinning the gravity well around to the direction it’s pointing would feel a bit smoother.
Bit Crushing
There’s a strong sense of style layered around this gameplay loop. Music is appropriately synth-y, for one, which suits me fine. Cyberpulse also keeps the story a light presence, maintaining the arcade feel. You’re destroying viruses inside a computer; like McAfee directed a Tron remake. Then there are the graphics. The bright, near-overpowering graphics. I love it; it’s a nuts aesthetic that fits the theme well. The colours are extremely vibrant and enemies are, generally, immediatly distinguishable by their colour and shape. It’s the kind of game you’d want as your screensaver, just so you can revel in the chaos and colour.
It does make it quite difficult to keep track of what’s what, though. I’d say about 25% of my deaths were due to me just guessing where to move, ’cause I’d lost myself in a big pile of multicoloured neon. That might also contribute to another issue: the insane difficulty spike in section eight. One level expects you to destroy a horde of enemies in twelve seconds, with lasers that dictate the speed of the fight. Ah well. As I said, the frustration is alleviated by the quick restarts and the overall enjoyment that the general loop provides. It’s just plain fun to play. A particularly good looking arcade game.
Cyberpulse – Good, Clean Fun
That’s not to say Cyberpulse has nothing else to offer. There’s local multiplayer, for one, in both the co-op and versus variety, depending on whether you want to make or break a friendship. You unlock various modes and add-ons for versus by playing through the campaign, which I liked. It’s nice to have an incentive to keep pushing forwards, beyond groping for the credits. While I was unable to corral anyone in the time I had, I can see it being wonderfully chaotic once four people are all locked in.
I also want to mention that Cyberpulse has a bestiary. It didn’t have to include one, but it did. I will applaud any game that does. But Cyberpulse is worth applauding regardless. It’s a successful twist on the twin-stick genre, somehow proving that bullets are fairly unnecessary. While the intense graphics do perhaps get in the way at times, Cyberpulse explores its central mechanic well and there’s a lot of content here to sink your teeth into. Strap on your ridiculous sunglasses, hack into the information super-highway and embrace Cyberpulse‘s excellent arcade action.
