Bitmaster [Xbox]
Developed by Vladimir Schlapak, Bitmaster begins with a bit of backstory of how Factor City’s energy is being drained, and a civil war that you want no part of is coming - so along with some others, you aim to break the Fourth Wall and reach freedom. You must survive waves of different enemies whilst collecting bonuses along the way. These bonuses you pick up will give you access to four different types of ammo, as well as increasing the effectiveness (such as through more projectiles) of each shot. Only two bonuses can be awaiting pickup at any time and if you don’t grab them they’ll eventually be replaced with others, so make sure not to waste them! Modifiers are available for lengths of time all across the map. In some areas you’ll notice you go much slower, while in others your shooting speed will increase, or your shield will continually deplete. These modifiers change throughout the course of play, so avoiding areas that are negatively affecting you, and allowing the fight to come to you in areas with positive modifiers is always a good idea.
Bitmaster describes itself as a twin-stick shooter. Immediately I had to pause with this, as whilst yeah - movement is controlled by one joystick, and the gun aim is controlled by the other - shooting is tied to the right bumper. Typically, twin-stick shooters will have the ability to fire solely through aiming with the right stick, and with no option for that here, it set off a lengthy internal debate over what really counts as a twin-stick shooter. The inability to modify the controls for Bitmaster immediately stood out to me too, particularly as the use of the triggers to swap weapons, and the bumper to shoot felt backwards in a way, especially when I already longed to shoot just through aim.
Visually, the arenas are quite bland, with grey floors and a grey perimeter that has a trippy grid pattern moving around. Blockades such as walls are a pale blue, and are impenetrable not only to you, but to enemies also, whereas the orange laser walls will allow enemies to pass right through, whilst forcing you to go around (although admittedly, you’ll find enemies get caught in between things quite often). Each of the ‘heroes’ available to you (as you unlock them) are similar in their polygonal appearances, with different brightly coloured hair and clothing, as well as their own little hoverboards - but each has slightly different stats (health, shield, etc). There are 20 enemy types, in a variety of shapes and sizes, with individual attacks, but these aren’t all that creatively designed either, but do well to keep you on your toes (particularly the pink blocks that explode out projectiles that home in on you, shown above). The soundtrack and sound effects are decent enough, with a synth beat that works well with the gameplay.
Boss designs are probably the most exciting of the enemies, with five different bosses available at random, at the end of each block of twenty waves. The RNG gods feel quite spiteful here, as whilst you do improve as you play (learning attack styles and the map layout, as well as learning to take advantage of buffs/debuffs), things can get out of control pretty fast - and with nothing explained to you, such as how to fight bosses (or anything, really), it can feel pretty unfair when a boss wipes you out in seconds, sending you straight back to the beginning. It’s frustrating, as it’s actually fun when you get into things - the first few waves are fairly slow and easy to deal with, but the fun (and the challenge) ramps up as more and more waves spawn, and for you to die pretty quickly upon coming face to face with a boss is super annoying. Maybe if it would allow you a few attempts at a boss before chucking you back to the beginning would be better - as then you get a chance to get to grips with how the boss plays, and how to defeat them, since nothing is explained.
It’s hard to tell where I stand with Bitmaster. It is enjoyable, if a tad frustrating at times, as the core gameplay is decent, and utilising pinch points in the map to your advantage will help you clear out enemies with ease. Gaining bonuses for your weapon to improve it makes mowing down enemies feel super satisfying, and it’s a game designed to just drop into whenever you like so you can get to the action right away. There’s just not a great deal going on with it, over and above that, especially when surviving the bosses is so absurdly difficult that you lose all motivation upon restart, to the point of just closing the game. If you succeed against a boss, it will give you a shortcut to skip 10 levels (making it slightly easier to progress, but as the first 10 levels aren’t that difficult anyway, it kinda makes no difference. You can also pick a perk to apply after defeating a boss, out of four options each time. It states to hover to find out what each perk does, but this doesn’t appear to work - so you’ll just have to guess based on the images provided.
Priced at £4.19 on the Xbox Store, it’s not an overly expensive game for what it is. There’s a Free Trial available, so if you’re swithering about buying it - I’d recommend you at least download the trial to get a feel for how it plays (or buy it on Steam, since it’s 39p there currently!). As I say, it’s enjoyable - in short bursts - so if you’re looking for something to sink hours into, then this might not be what you’re looking for. With a few tweaks, it could easily be improved, but as it stands now it’s just a bit too lacking.
In the end, we decided to give Bitmaster the Collecting Asylum rating of 5.5/10.
Have you played Bitmaster yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Sometimes You for the Bitmaster Xbox review code!
