Gravity Crash is an old school style Space Shooter, however it’s one that has been specifically created with this generation in mind, therefore as well as a robust single player campaign mode we are also treated to offline multiplayer and an excellent yet easy to use level create mode.

 

 

The game all takes place against a wonderfully 1080p Neon background, which while quite minimalist certainly grabs your attention from the off. To control your ship you have two options, first off you can either go for old school controls using just the one stick of the dualshock which works but takes a while to get used to, or you can cop out and choose the dual stick option which is certainly a lot easier to get to grips with. Flying your ship is as simple as pressing thrust using your chosen controller option and then steering in the right direction.

 

The whole aim of Gravity Crash is to work your way through each level destroying the objectives you are given at the beginning of the level. To enable you to rack up a high score you must finish the level as quickly as possible all while collecting gems, destroying enemy buildings, ships, weapons and by rescuing your own kind, who can be found wandering certain parts of the level next to their crashed vessel. Enemies and Allies are told apart by their colour, therefore enemies are red, while allies are green.

 

When the game starts you will essentially plummet through space, therefore thrusting is essential unless you want your ship to end up as pieces of space particle, though at least you have a shield which automatically activates to wear down first, so you shouldn’t find yourself in that situation to begin with unless you are a particularly bad space pilot. Once you have managed to wear down your shield you become very vulnerable to enemy fire, therefore one bullet or steering in the wrong direction into a rock will probably see you lose a life. To make matters worse you only have a certain amount of fuel, therefore once this runs low you will need to search for the special fuel giving crystals which are spread throughout the levels in order to continue without your ship blowing up.

 

Level design is such that you won’t be able to go too far without running into enemy turrets, rocket launchers and spaceships, therefore it’s always a challenge to meet your objective all while trying to take out the enemy and not run out of fuel at the same time. To aid you in defeating your enemy you have your trusty gun and also a special weapon which you are given a choice of at the beginning of the game, these come in especially handy when facing up to the end of level bosses, although it has to be said that meeting these bosses is quite an infrequent occurrence.

 

Gravity Crash is quite unbalanced as far as difficulty is concerned in that some levels are a breeze to get through while others offer a much greater challenge, however this isn’t too big a deal when balanced against the addictive nature of the gameplay.

 

The multiplayer mode allows you to play along with your friends offline which is good fun, however perhaps the biggest thing this game has going for it is the ability to create your own levels using the in game creation tools. Creating a level really is very simple, all of the items used in the game are present, therefore using your imagination you could probably throw up a level in next to no time, we did after all. Once you have finished your level you can simply save it, give it a description and then upload it.

 

 

Given this is a budget title it would probably be unfair to expect too much in terms of community features, however you can’t help but be disappointed when searching for user levels. Sure you can search by friend, highest rated user and most recent levels, however it’s impossible to tell which levels are actually good as there is no real rating system in place. When you are in a users level you can rate them by pressing start, however there is no way to tell how many times a user has been rated. To be fair the features that are included all work brilliantly and you never know, depending on how well this game is received the community aspects may improve.

 

Overall Gravity Crash is an excellent, addictive retro style title which old school shooter fans will love, it’s wonderfully presented and has plenty of levels and features to keep anyone who buys it hooked for a long time. We highly recommend this title to anyone who loves this genre of game, you will not be disappointed.