Tesla’s had enough of your alien crap.
Ah, the classic shoot ‘em up genre. How many of these games have I played before? I can’t even tell you to be honest. Of course, this is the first shoot ‘em up featuring Nikola Tesla, as he uses a ship to fight off alien invaders, so there is that. While I feel like TeslaPunk doesn’t bring that much to the table, I still found myself having a pretty fun time with it overall.
Featuring a standard arcade mode, TeslaPunk has players going through six levels with mid and end bosses thrown in between a myriad of enemies that take either one or multiple hits to take down. Rather simple stuff, even when looking at the main shooting mechanics. Tesla’s ship has two main fire attacks; holding down the ZR button will fire a rather impressive spread of bullets to take down the fodder enemies, while holding down B will focus fire a laser that will do more damage over time. While doing this, movement is slowed, so players need to know when to use this type of attack when facing multiple enemies and enemy bullets.
Platforms: XB1, Wii U, iOS
MSRP: $9.99
Price I’d pay: $7
The final attack requires a meter to activate. Each enemy defeated drops energy that will fill up the3-bar meter. Using the attack will take up a bar that will destroy every bullet on screen as well as generate a powerful laser that does serious damage. If the player has at least two bars filled, when hit by an enemy, the attack will automatically activate. Think of it like a safety net. Just in case.
During the arcade mode, players can also take on missions. These are special objectives they can go for while playing. Some can be rather challenging to accomplish, but it is a nice thing to have given how short the arcade mode can actually be. So a little extra play time can be had from going for these.
The thing I actually spent the most time with was the survival mode, where players control a ship that can only move left and right while the screen scrolls vertically. In this mode, players can collect coins to use after death to upgrade their ship with better weapons, change the hit box on the ship, and obtain single use items for the survival mode. This had a nice progression to it that kept me coming back for just one more run.
Its tongue in cheek nature is nice, even when it is not actually shown too much in the game. The look and overall feel is actually pretty nice, although I did have a few issues losing track of where my ship was when things got overly hectic. That, along with the backgrounds used, can be a pretty bad mixture at times.
All in all, TeslaPunk is a decent shoot ‘em up with a simple nature. It is a bit short, and because of the simple mechanics, its lasting appeal is short-lived, but for a decent price of 10 bucks, players can have some pretty fun times, especially in the survival mode where the progression system works really well. While it’s not going to blow any socks off, TeslaPunk still has a few decent tricks up its sleeve that make it a fun, but short shoot ‘em up that fans of the genre will enjoy for a time.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
