Super. Mutant. Alien. Assault.
Four words that, when said in succession, are both evocative and baffling. SMAA is the first game from Cybernate, which is essentially a two person operation out of the UK. If you’ve ever played Super Crate Box you have a pretty good idea of what SMAA is. That is to say it’s a 2D action shooter that has you switching weapons on the fly, raising all kinds of hell. Seriously though, they call their game a Super Crate Box clone. People who rip off games could learn a lot from what the guys at Cybernate have done here. They’ve taken a formula that works, and made it better in every possible way. It’s quite amazing.
SMAA apparently has a story. You take control of a wicked little robot, whose sole purpose is to guard a spaceship carrying the last remaining cryogenically frozen humans. All that stuff is incidental though because as soon as the game starts you’ll be blasting the shit out of some Super Mutant Aliens; humans be damned.
The game has you running a series of objective based levels before fighting a boss. Sometimes you’ll have to deliver some fuel canisters from one end of the stage to the other, while dodging aliens and the puddles of toxic goo they poop out. Other times you’ll have to fight off the aliens while a piece of machinery is constantly blasting them with radiation and causing them to evolve new powers at an alarming rate. And yeah, sometimes you’ll just have to kill all the damn aliens in the level. The level types are mostly fine, I just kind of wish there was a bit more variety in the objectives.
The game makes up for it’s lack of variety in game types by giving you a ridiculous amount of weapons and powers to play with. Weapons and powers that feel good to use. Grenade launchers, AK-47’s, Shotguns, Uzi’s, and some more exotic ones I won’t spoil, all feel incredibly satisfying. They have a weight that you wouldn’t expect at first glance. Shots from the grenade launcher for example, travel at a set arc and distance so a knowledge of how the weapon fires is necessary if you want to be effective with it. Most of the weapons work in a similar way, and reward skill. That’s a hamfisted way of saying that the game has depth.
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“And man, when stuff explodes in this game, it really explodes. You can tell that every frame of animation was a labour of love.”
This depth extends to the traits as well. Traits tend to augment your character in ways that allow for better movement around the level and each one makes the game more interesting in an exponential way. Dash is the first one that you unlock and at the press of a button your character shoots in the direction you’re facing. It sounds less impressive on paper but in practice it leads to some Matrix type shit, where you’re narrowly dashing under enemies to grab a gun before blasting them into goop; all in the span of a second or two.
And man, when stuff explodes in this game, it really explodes. You can tell that every frame of animation was a labour of love. The detail that went into the alien designs and how fluidly they move is staggering. Screenshots don’t do the game justice, it needs to be seen in motion. Hell, even the stages themselves have an unreal amount of stuff going on in them; they didn’t cut any corners in the art department. The end result is a game that is a treat to look at. I give it the coveted Metal Slug comparison; and that isn’t something I hand out lightly.
SMAA was a huge surprise for me. I went in without many expectations and came out impressed in almost every regard. It does so many things right, and with care, and love, and style, and aliens, and violence, and… dubstep? For the record, I dislike dubstep but this game somehow manages to pull off a grimey dub-space-step soundtrack, and it’s awesome. Yeah…
You can find Super Mutant Alien Assault on Steam early access for $10.99.
***A PC preview code was provided by the Publisher***
