The Life of an Ex-Hardcore Gamer

[UPDATED 2-17-2010]If the video gaming world needs anything less than a new tower defense game, it’s a new twin stick shooter. Despite that, here is Cyborg Mice Arena on Xbox 360 as one of the Indie Games. So what does it do to make itself different from the many others out there? Read on to find out.

Cyborg Mice Arena is a twin stick shooter that has you play as a mouse fighting endless waves of enemies. The controls are intuitive and simple: Aim with right analog stick, pull left trigger for one gun, right trigger for the other. The A button is an EMP (think "smart bomb" in the old school shooters, but more within your range) and you can also use the bumpers to use your tail as a melee weapon (a tail whip) which comes in handy if you run out of ammo and/or EMP blasts.

After a short tutorial on how to play and what each enemy is like it puts you right in the game. They know you want a quick pick up and play kind of game and that is what they deliver. You can pick which mode, difficulty, map, and program mods you want and then you jump right in and start blasting away. You can play the game on your own or up to 4 player on the same system. As usual the game is a lot more fun with other people to play with, but it also means that while working together you have to fight over who gets the ammo.

What is nice about the game is that while the game seems simple at first (and it is), there is more to playing the game besides just trying to get a high score in that one level. As you gain more points, they are converted to money used to buy things in the in-game store. In there you can buy different weapons, cybernetic implants (the game had to get it’s name from somewhere) to upgrade your mouse, equipment like regeneration and increased EMP blast, as well as extra maps and game modes (Endless and Versus). Endless mode is like the regular mode but instead of endless waves it is truly endless where the enemies just keep on coming with no chance to rest. Versus is exactly what it sounds like, battle it out with your friends and you’re given unlimited ammo to do so. You start with one map but can unlock 4 more.

Unlike most other twin-stick shooters this game is shown using an isometric view (not overhead, not side scrolling, somewhat "tilted") but still using 3D graphics. The graphics are clean and somewhat detailed and always ran smoothly even if there were 4 people playing and lots going on onscreen. When destroying enemies there are some cool little particle effects as well. It is far from the greatest looking game out there, but definitely looks better than most Indie Games I have played. The sound effects all sound clean and clear as well as the music, so kudos to the team for putting a lot of effort all around in this game. [UPDATE] They have released a free update to the game that now has a better lighting engine in place.  By default the game will now play in a darkened area with your flashlight ahead of you that lights up whatever it shines on.   You can also set it to super dark, or back to the classic “bright” mode.  It’s a nice addition and really looks great.  The update also added a disco light mode which doesn’t add anything to the gameplay but is something fun to have as an extra.

As usual with the Xbox Indie Games though, this game suffers from the lack of an online leaderboard for the scores, but I will be posting them on this site’s leadboards page to help those interested. There is also no online play as well, but this is to be expected. Hard to fault the game since XNA doesn’t really allow what we expect from something released on XBLA, but it is still a fault in the game.

3.5/5 stars – While not bringing much new to the table, it is still a very entertaining title especially with some friends around. Lack of online play and leaderboards brings it down a bit, but there is plenty to unlock and customize. The game is less than 45 megs to download and is only 200 MS points ($2.50) so well worth the price if you’re looking for some old school mindless shooting.  Click here for the official Xbox.com listing of the game and add it to your download queue.