LittleBear
says: The second mouse gets the cheese.
18.10.06
Polarity+ Released
Polarity+ has just been released. It’s a very slick arena shooter, very Tron-like in its visuals and colour. The quality of the game should not come as a surprise to anyone, given the nature of past efforts by Mark Incitti. I refer, of course, to the excellent, but ill-fated Grid Wars. It’s good to see Mark bounce back with a new game.
The gameplay is very familiar by now, use the keyboard to move and the mouse to aim. A dual analog stick is recommended and supported, though in my case I didn’t get a chance to test this out (more on this later). A seeker shot has been added, and depending on the enemies behaviour you may be better off locking on and shooting rather than going for a volume curtain of fire. There are the usual bunch of powerups to collect, like the triple-shot, super-shot, and bounce-shot upgrades.
Another aspect of gameplay is hinted at by the game’s title. Added is the notion of polarity, similar to Ikaruga’s. Switch your shield’s polarity to allow yourself to absorb shots of a like colour. Opposite coloured shots will destroy you, as will white “flux energy”. The addition of this as a gameplay element offers a unique twist to the genre and promises to offer new challenges to players.
The game itself is very well packaged. It allows you to adjust all the options you would expect to be able to, as well as offering two styles of play: a score attack and a mission mode. My only complaint with the demo is the 15 minute limit on playtime. That’s really too short a time to properly evaluate before purchasing. A little longer would allow a player to test out the polarity feature, to see how they like it and just how different the game is from the myriad of other, similarily styled games available. That said though, it’s enough time to see that this is a well-crafted game, worth checking out.
JohnH said,
October 19, 2006 at 2:57 am
Well, I’m totally confused by this. I’ve played and understand Ikaruga, but I’ve singularly failed to absorb any shots in Polarity+. Whenever I try, I lose a life.
Any hints? I’d probably find out with perseverance, but you only get 15 minutes of demo time.
Maybe the coloured shots only show up later on in the level? It’d have been bright to start the first level with absorbable shots — sort of a training stage.
the2bears said,
October 19, 2006 at 7:25 am
John,
I’ll follow-up on this in a day or two. I’m going to play around (more than 15 minutes) to see if I can figure it out too… I don’t know the answer to your question
Bill
Aubrey said,
October 20, 2006 at 7:50 pm
The White shots *always* kill you. Unfortunately, polarity only comes into play on the score attack, and later on in the Mission mode. I dunno, I think he should have left the third bullet type out, and just made the polarity idea work on its own: K.I.S.S.
I’m using a dual analogue, and I was just about to move the homing weapon button onto a trigger so that I could actually use it while aiming, but then the demo ran out.
I’m too poor to get the real thing right now (yes. Too poor for a $15 game. THAT POOR).
Not sure if I like the weird 4 way gravity thing going on – just makes it feel like a ouija board. If the forces were purely point/circular based, he might be alright – might feel like trying to stay ontop of a hill. But those sudden changes in forces as you cross a diaglonal are jarring, especially when you try to keep in the center the whole time, and that’s when you get your “Gravity” direction changes really frequently.
Man, there’s actually a lot of little things I’d want to change… like when switching polarity, perhaps making the bullets of your current color bigger & more transparent & easier to pick up – make them seem “big and soft” when they’re safe and “small and pointy” when they’re dangerous. Seeing the two bullet types switch size as you pressed the polarity button would probably explain the mechanic a little more intuitively… like “Hey, when I press this button, stuff changes! That’s got to mean something!”. Whereas before, I had to read the instructions to understand if it was ikaruga style.
I like that he’s done enough to distinguish himself from GeometryWars (being, as this is, a pretty obvious re-use of the code/stuff he learned for Grid Wars). Blending ikaruga’s main mechanic with rez’s stylings is a pretty neat idea – I’ve certainly not seen it done before. However, it does expose him a bit: I’m not sure he completely knows where he’s going with the design decisions. If he keeps at it, he’ll get it. There’s nothing harder in life than bringing about a new order of things. I’m just really glad he’s decided to try, even if the first attempts are not completely successful. That’s the important thing. He’s redeeming himself.
the2bears.com » Magazine Round-up said,
October 21, 2006 at 10:32 pm
[...] In the October 2006 edition of Edge Magazine, a British publication, had a little blurb on the recent Bizarre Creations battle with Geometry Wars clones. Mark Incitti’s name is mentioned, though by now I’m sure Mark would rather we concentrate on the recent release of Polaris+. Kenta Cho was also mentioned in the same item, with Edge recommending Mu-cade and Gunroar as great free, dual-stick offerings. [...]
the2bears.com » AtomHex said,
March 8, 2008 at 10:33 am
[...] I’ll update more once I get a chance to properly play the release version. See also Polarity+ and GridWars if you can find [...]