Homage Review: Orbitron Revolution (Xbox 360)

The grandfather of rock-hard, high-speed gaming, Defender, gets a modern make over in this high quality indie game for Xbox 360.

There's no denying Williams' Defender is one of the all-time greats of arcade gaming. There's also no denying it was an incredibly punishing game, with borderline oppressive difficulty and less than ergonomic controls. It was also very fast paced compared to other space shoot 'em ups of that era.  This new homage to the Williams classic manages to capture some of qualities and thankfully uses far more natural controls, but does it beat the old stalwart at its own game?

Orbitron Revolution from FireBase is an Xbox Live Indie game that stands head and shoulder above the competition in terms of visual quality and production values. The marketplace has plenty of ironically old skool-looking games, it also has far too many games that look like they were drawn by an 8 year-old in MS Paint, Orbitron Revolution, on the other hand, looks gorgeous and professional. It's up there with the likes of Omega Five and RoboBlitz in terms of graphics, but of course people don't love Defender because of its graphics.

The setup for the game is basically the same as Defender, in that the play field wraps around and you have to patrol this area, blasting aliens and defending key points. In Orbitron, you pilot a space fighter around the perimeter of a circular space station, blasting the aliens who are trying to destroy the ring by drilling one of four sectors. As well as destroying the alien drillers, you also have to to fend off the aliens protecting the drillers. Each driller you destroy initiates a new wave of aliens, which multiply in quantity and variety with each wave.

Defend the ring's four sectors with your life

Orbitron Revolution has three game modes. Guardian mode is the meat of the game. It's in this mode you have to defend the ring from drillers, as well as the other aliens. In Countdown mode ditches the drillers and just challenges you to survive for 3 minutes. Extra mode is the same as Guardian mode, except you only get one life. Given this mode is only unlocked if you can survive in Guardian mode for 3 minutes, you can imagine how challenging it is to make any progress in Extra mode at all.

In terms of progress, the game only has the one level. The aliens will keep coming, wave after wave, with very little variety, truth be told. As soon as all four sectors are destroyed, it's game over. So there's no end of level screens, no mid-game score totals, it's just a constant assault on the reflexes. Thankfully, you get a number of tools to help you survive. As well as your main laser, your ship has a Boost mode to help you travel between the sectors, a area of effect Wave Bomb and a linear Power Shot. In order to use any of these you need to collect the power cells that are dropped by the aliens when they're destroyed, which fills up a two-stage power meter. You can use the Boost whenever there's power in the meter, but you can only use the Wave Bomb when it's half full and you can only use the Power Shot when it's completely full. This presents its own challenge, as there are certain aliens, such as the Sword (which has rotates slowly around the ring with two laser beams emitting from either side of it) that can only be destroyed with Wave Bombs or Power Shots. There is one other tool at your disposable though: the Warp Gates. There are two Warp Gates on the ring, which, when entered, send you hurtling a quarter of the way around the ring at high speed, destroying any aliens you collide with on the way. This can be used tactically to destroy the tougher drillers, as long as you can aim your fighter.

Orbitron is a mixed bag. It looks great and feels the closer to Defender than any other game in recent memory, but the space fighters also feel rather too sluggish to do the job well. When surviving more than 3 or 4 minutes is a challenge, it might surprise you that travelling all the way around the ring can take 30 seconds or more if you don't use the Boost or Warp Gate. Which is a shame, because the controls are natural and tight. There's also so little variety, with only one level and only a handful of alien types, that if you don't enjoy the game's core mechanics you will get bored very quickly. Personally, I like it, but it's one of those games that I can play for 20 minutes, constantly trying again and again to beat my highscore, then I won't want to touch it again all day. But then Defender could be a bit like that too.

So this game looks good, play well enough and manages to be as challenging as the game that inspired it, if for slightly different reasons. Fans of Defender (or Juno First for that matter) could do worse than to check it out, especially when it costs a little over £2.

Plays like

• Defender
• Star Gate
• Juno First

Highs

• Proof Xbox Live Indie games can be made to the same high standards as the best of Xbox Live Arcade games.
• Challenging gameplay, with that "one more go" quality all the best arcade games have.
• Worth the 240 Microsoft Points if you're a fan of Defender or Juno First

Lows

• Very little variety.
• The fighter craft feel sluggish.
• No multiplayer.

Orbitron Revolution is available on Xbox Live Indie Games prince 240MSP (£2.04).