I wasn’t sure what to expect when I sat down to play Harmonix’s new game, A City Sleeps , but I can safely say that it wasn’t a 2D side-scrolling, bullet-hell shooter with techno-anime art, and a confident hip-hop soundtrack. But sure enough, the next game from the house that built Frequency, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band is all of those things, and I’m kind of digging it.

A City Sleeps Album 3 IMAGES

Developed by a handful of folks who worked on the experimental FPS Chroma , A City Sleeps is a twin-stick shooter that doesn’t have any qualms with beating you senseless. Falling somewhere in the middle of games like Geometry Wars, R-Type, and Ikaruga, A City Sleeps is immediately accessible with its familiar base mechanics. Left stick moves you around, right stick fires projectiles in any given direction. You try to dodge enemy fire while shooting back at them. But once you get beyond the simplistic, A City Sleeps becomes its own unique and interesting beast.More-so than most arcade shooters, the game is built around a legitimately unique world with some interesting themes explored. Straight from the horse’s mouth, Harmonix explains, “A City Sleeps follows Poe, the last of a long line of ‘Silkworms,’ dream exorcists that can enter the minds of sleeping hosts to rid their dreams of demons. When the residents of SanLo City fall into a deep slumber, only Poe can rescue them from their never-ending nightmare. It will take all of her skill to cleanse their dreams of spirits, and – flanked by her stable of powerful familiars – uncover the city’s dark secrets.”As for the actual gameplay, when enemies get close to Poe, she’ll immediately stop using projectiles and instead swing her sword. While this is obviously a more dangerous tactic, each enemy dispatched with the blade helps grow your special meter. Once full, you’re able to unleash a devastating screen-spanning attack – think of the bombs in Geometry Wars. This balance of risk/reward definitely adds an interesting dynamic to A City Sleeps.The other major aspect of Harmonix’s shooter that makes it feel unique is its ghost system. Poe has a trio of spirits available to her in a given round – one delivers health, one shoots out projectiles, and one creates an energy link between it and Poe and that destroys any enemy caught in-between. But here’s the catch – ghosts can only be used at certain nodes that appear throughout the levels. Nodes come in different forms that act as modifiers, and it’s up to you to choose which ghost you want to pair with a given node. For instance, use a health ghost on one might lead to health pellets being fired off in every direction, while another will create a short-range, but constant pulse of health.Not only are you worrying about dodging enemy fire and returning with a barrage of your own, but you’re also constantly juggling which ghosts you want paired to which nodes. You’re able to switch these on the fly at any given time, and there’s no penalty for cycling through your ghosts at any given node, so A City Sleeps definitely encourages experimentation on your road to survival.A City Sleeps is quite a bit different than the games we generally associate with Harmonix, but after spending about 30 minutes with an early build of the shooter, I’m definitely digging it. Those attending PAX Prime will be able to be among the first to go hands on with A City Sleeps. And as always, we’ll have much more on the game leading up to its Steam release on October 16

Marty Sliva is an Editor at IGN. If you see him in Seattle, tell him how much you enjoy Lost. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty