Early Access Review

CRUSH

Gameplay

Final Thought

CRUSH is a bite-sized action-arcade romp that carries on the spirit of SMASH T.V.'s futuristic televised death-sports game-show aesthetic, a real staple of 90's gaming culture. With the same over-the-top retro-future style, the same aggressive and fast-paced top-down run'n'gun action, and even the same fun and memorable gameshow plot, CRUSH is a new contender with a heavier and grittier, punkier style of its own.CRUSH absolutely has that unhinged and gritty punk-rock feeling that fans of Ubermosh are going to feel automatically familiar with. It trades that single-room arena focus on counter-attack reflexes for a more explorative level-based progression of free-flowing mayhem and carnage by way of explosive arsenal and impressive weapon selections. Murdering your way through the masses of contenders, your choices of instruments of death range from rapid-fire lazers of doom to wide-spray streams of fire but they don't last long so kill efficiently and kill quick.The rooms you travel across have the same box-arena design to them and not much changes in the way of obstacles, but the hordes of oncoming baddies that surround you in every direction are what make each encounter unique. From nimble little ninja bots with swirling blades to gigantic juggernaut mechs with massive spinning Gatling guns, the type of enemies you come across and the insane weaponry they drop become progressively more populated, challenging, and chaotic.It ramps up in the challenge pretty quick too, but even so the game is very lenient with the extra lives. Going on a run through the sensationalism of the prime-time death-sport-gameshow starts you with 11 lives total, and you'll still probably eat those up pretty quick on your first few tries. The game is still very much in Early Access so who's to say how much of that is subject to change, but I'm already excited to see how certain features like the currently useless currency will play out, and how the shop will add replayability be it in the form of permanent upgrades, new weapons or perks.At only $5 this is a satisfactory value for genuinely arcade-y top-down shooting action, and fans of SMASH T.V. or even classic Gauntlet are going to dig the map based progression through grid-like layouts of increasingly crazy arenas. The whole futuristic game show twist on the game's presentation is just extra icing on the cake, and a style I personally really dig and miss from the 90's.It'd be great to see some sprucing up of the actual rooms since they're a little big and empty right now, even something as simple as spinning traps or other obstacles could make weaving in-between the gunfire of enemies even more fun than it already is.The progressive exploration of rooms Binding of Isaac-style is fun and replayable, but what's there is sorta bare-bones with not much variation between directions you go in or consequences (This is already being addressed by developers in frequent updates, which seem to be adding dead-ends, bridges, etc.).This game has huge potential for score-chasing and leaderboards, both of which are absent from the game right now. Tight scoring mechanics mixed with some form of world and friend leaderboards would add a good amount of competitive replayability.Other than that the meat of the game is there, and it's damn good. The standout pixel-art caught my discerning eye for retro visuals right away and the gritty, oppressive look of the future death-sport arena matched the brutal and hardcore twinstick action quite well. This is a delightful twinstick romp, and its even better in co-op so be sure to bring a friend!