What if Geometry Wars had a story mode? This would be it!
Tachyon Project – Nintendo Switch – Released: 1/25/18 – $9.99
Short Review (Review copy provided by Eclipse Games)
Surprisingly instincts kicked in as soon as started this game. My fingers were itching for a dual joystick set up to fully enjoy this game. The game heavily reminded me of standing at the arcade playing Robotron 2084 or playing Geometry Wars on the Xbox 360 with my arcade stick. The game feels identical to those games and I didn’t notice how much I craved for this type of game. While games from 10Tons gave me a taste of the genre I was missing, Tachyon Project gave me a full meal. Being in a closed off area with your back against the wall is an entirely different feeling over running through areas. Tachyon Project gives you a huge range of enemies to face against with the standard chasers, ones that rush toward you, and ones with shields. But that isn’t all they have to offer, there are vortexes that will pull you in, shielded enemies that must be attacked from behind, and snakes that take a lot to kill but will block paths with their tails. While the two player mode doesn’t offer much since it takes the story mode and you can have up to 4 ships. The buttons feel very weird after using dual joystick and my nephew was having a real rough time with the game but I think that was just due to his age. The game has a ton of different modes as well as a leadership board to keep people coming back for more. I was very shocked by how much contact is packed into a $10 game. This game is well worth every penny certainly if you are trying to scratch that twin stick space shooter itch.
I really like this icon but for some reason it doesn’t look like an in-game model:
Story
Did this game need a story? Likely not. Am I glad it is there? Didn’t really matter to me but surprised it has a pretty solid one even if it is basic. The game starts off in the tutorial mode that explains that you are a program made to hack into places. Your creators have given you an AI which explains why you can do your own thing. While you are trying to hack and gather information your creators pull you out but they are tracked. The police track your creators down and in a last ditch effort they release you into the world. You are a lone hacking AI with no longer a goal so you go out to find out more about the world. By slowly hacking into everything…
Pretty basic story that wasn’t really needed but interesting to give a bit of background. Gives your ship a reason to be killing off everything and why a ship is running around in cyber space.
Gameplay
It is an average twin stick shooter which is nice but does offer a range of weapons to choose from. The story is nothing to write home about but the other modes make up for the story mode and story plus mode which is just a harder mode. Each story mission is broken up into six sections with objections. The objections are either kill X amount of this enemy or survive an X amount of time. The challenge modes seem pretty endless though, endless, stealth, limited time, claustrophobia, extreme stealth, secondary weapons only, one hit, laser loadout, shotgun loadout, and bombs loadout. My favorite mode is the claustrophobia since it has mines on the edges that grow in size. As you kill enemies they return to their normal size so if you aren’t constantly killing things your area will shrink.
Personal Experience
The game is pretty short with 10 missions but the story plus mode. So 10 missions and 6 submissions in each one so you have 60 submissions. I found myself just quickly running through the story mode and story plus. I just wanted to have them done and then I spent all my time in the challenge mode. I pick this game up all the time for endless mode when I have a good short ride. I don’t last forever but enough that makes me come back for more. The vortexes are my most hated enemy, if more than 2 spawn in the same spot it will just pull you in instantly if you get close. It sucks but if you are far enough you could easily deal with them.
Final Thoughts
I would say pick this up as a person that loves the 10Tons twin stick shooters. This was right up the block and gave me back more than those games. For $10 you are getting a lot of bang for your buck. The only issue I have is the two player mode doesn’t have a one on one or two on two or any modes that take advantage of multiplayer. It would be great to have a mode like claustrophobia but the second player could place different enemy types for a set amount of time. At $10 you get enough that I would easily recommend this player since playing through everything took around 5 hours. If you ran through any of the modes more than once or did repeated playthroughs it will easily make up an hour per dollar.
UPDATE: 5/31/18
I would give this game a 8 out of 10!
My Gameplay Footage:
Trailer: (No Switch Trailer used PS4/Vita trailer)
End Credits
This took a bit longer than I thought but got busy which sucks. Work has been on me for different things and report cards were recently. Thankfully that is done so I will be uploading more often for the next few weeks. I did obtain a few giveaway copies so check the subreddit for them. I will be doing “The Trail Frontier Challenge” giveaway soon and we got 3 copies to give away! I will be doing two on the Nintendo Reddit and one on the Nintendo Switch Subreddit that will be done by Pedro. Shhh I haven’t let him know yet and I don’t think he reads my draft before I publish them. Make sure to check out his recent reviews since he has been posted more lately. As always thanks for reading, let me know what you think, if you plan on picking up any games, and what games you want me to review next. Check out the giveaway for Mercenaries SAGA since that should still be going on for the next few days. I don’t have anything else for the Twitter and YouTube giveaways so make sure you subscribe to the Nintendo and Nintendo Switch subreddits for those giveaways.
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