Throughout the annals of history there have been a number of pairings that just make bloody good sense; Han Solo and Leia, the PSOne and Final Fantasy VII, Adolf Hitler and a bullet – the list goes on and on. Well, now we can add the PS4 and Assault Android Cactus from Aussie developer Witch Beam to that hallowed list of couples, since it certainly appears as if the brain-haemorrhagingly raucous shooter was designed with Sony’s console in mind all along.
Nowhere is this better evident then when you’re trying to nab your first S+ Rank; an infinitely memorable feat simply on the grounds that the screen is so often flooded with more robots and laser death than a Skynet Bring Your Human to Work Day, it feels almost as if Assault Android Cactus should have sacked off all that PC lark and been on PS4 from the start.
An incredibly finely tuned yet accessible twin-stick shooter, Assault Android Cactus is horrendously easy to comprehend and get to grips with. The premise is simple; tossing folks into the mechanical boots of one of a cast of androids (the titular Cactus being the first one available), your job is to kick the clank out of all the robots that have been unceremoniously stuffed into each stage before progressing onto the next and repeating the act. Sure enough though, there is far more to Assault Android Cactus than its straightforward remit outwardly posits.
Separating itself from the formative and classic DNA that runs so deeply in its makeup, Assault Android Cactus actually does away with a health bar. That’s right; getting shot in the face or indeed anywhere else on your person will not actually kill you – huzzah. What will happen though is that you’ll run out of juice and power down. Ah yes, you see because you’re an android and not a fleshling with a boomstick, your battery indicator starts draining at the beginning of every battle and each time you get knocked down, it costs huge amount of battery life to force your chosen android back to their feet again.
Even though the battery mechanic marks a sharp departure from the genre status quo, the manner in which it is replenished is reassuringly familiar; smashing your robotic foes into scrap and scooping up battery power-ups wherever they drop being the only real way to keep your power levels topped up. Making matters more complicated is the fact that these battery replenishments tend to land in the middle of a veritable maelstrom of foes and as such, you frequently find yourself evaluating the best way to nab these vital power-ups without getting being harassed. Ostensibly, the biggest boon that this battery system brings to the table is that it removes the one-hit death sentence that so often puts off folks when confronted with bullet hell shooters, thus providing the sort of much-needed reprieve from instant failure that so many other like-minded games refuse to permit.
When it comes to the act of hammering the WD40 out of your mechanical enemies, Assault Android Cactus provides a myriad of ways to get the job done. Each android begins with an unlimited primary and more devastating secondary attack, (though the latter requires recharging over time) while a wide range of upgrades such as increased firepower, faster movement and an EMP style bomb that paralyses your enemies can be discovered in the wreckage of your foes.
In addition to the raft of temporary upgrades that scatter through every stage, each of the androids that you can play as all boast different attacks that in turn make them suitable for a variety of different playstyles. From shotgun-wielding Coral whose short-range attacks make her perfect for clearing enemy groups to Aubergine who, instead of using a gun, actually uses a remote controlled drone with swords for wings to carve up the opposition, there’s definitely an android for everyone to master.
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Like a sagely old Mr. Miyagi slapping down an overeager Daniel Larusso, some of Assault Android Cactus most elementary lessons are those not so much concerned with aggression, but defensive strategy and spatial awareness (rather than car washing and snipping especially fiendish Bonsai trees). Not massively unlike a professional boxer then, Assault Android’s Cactus’ best lessons relate to footwork and knowledge of space, teaching the player how to wheel and strafe in and out of killzones to deliver the most damage whilst avoiding potentially deadly reciprocation. Clearly, a rigid and practical understanding of the two is needed if you want to turn that C rank into, well, something better.
Speaking of ranks, it’s both these and the score which underpins them that figures into the endgame of Assault Android’s Cactus long after the campaign final boss has fallen. After you’ve familiarised yourself with the fundamentals, it soon becomes clear that the gulf which exists between the A, S and S+ ranks is sizable to say the least. To put this into perspective, to nab an S rank you have to complete a stage without getting knocked on your rear end even once. Grabbing an S+ rank on the other hand, not only requires no knockdowns but also killing every enemy in one long, unbroken combo chain. In the case of obtaining the latter, this means that you’re not allowed anything more than a two second gap between kills and so all of sudden deciding which android to play as and when to switch between primary and secondary weapons becomes a hugely important consideration.
Making such feats all the more challenging whilst also further elevating Assault Android Cactus beyond many of its peers are the levels themselves. An enemy in their own right, each stage is dynamic in function; with whole sections that fall away to be replaced anew by fresh level layouts in addition to a murder’s row of traps and other hazards, to underestimate the level design of Android Assault Cactus soon proves to be folly of the highest and swiftest order.
There is so much to mastering the endgame of Assault Android Cactus that even the smallest deficiency in the responsiveness of the controls or fluctuation in the game’s rock solid sixty frames per second screen update could unfairly derail an otherwise stellar S+ rank run. And it’s here that Witch Beam’s shooter feels so natural, so right on PS4 – Cactus’s brand of ultra-responsive movement and twin-stick shooting is so synonymous with the arcade roots of the PlayStation console platform that it reaffirms the belief that the game was always destined for the console long before the first line of code was even written.
Broadly speaking, if the hugely satisfying score and rank chasing doesn’t do anything for your nether regions there’s a lot of other stuff to do in Assault Android Cactus. Away from the furious, ego-stroking battles for leaderboard supremacy, you can hook up with up to three other friends to take on the campaign or individual stages, both of which are huge amounts of fun when played for any period of time. In terms of extra modes, Witch Beam have chucked in a number of them to further increase the longevity of the game with Daily Drive providing special challenges that can only be done each day while Infinity Drive sees how long you can withstand infinite waves of enemies.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Aussie outfit has also bolted on a raft of unlockables that can be obtained with credits earned from playing the game. Ranging from a collection of concept art through to more ambitious and game-changing fare such as a forced isometric viewpoint and even a first-person mode to play the game, the sheer amount of stuff to get and do in Assault Android Cactus far outstrips the ‘dumb shooter’ archetype that the uninitiated might ignorantly label it as.
If there is one little niggle with the whole affair it’s that those who aren’t wannabe twin-stick shooter savants will likely find issue with the relatively steep of challenge of the game’s numerous boss battles. Although wonderfully constructed multi-phase encounters, all of the bosses prove to be extremely difficult and it takes a good few playthroughs before you can squeak past them with even a lower-tier ranking. To this end, while the satisfaction in beating them is its own reward, the initial blunt force trauma of their challenge might be enough to turn off less seasoned players.
Of course the managing director of Witch Beam, Sanatana Mishra, would be far too nice to admit it but it is true; Assault Android Cactus stands at the apex of the twin-stick shooter genre. Oozing excellence from every neon-flushed and colourful digital pore, Witch Beam’s inaugural effort is not the next Robotron, or the next Ikaruga, but rather the first Assault Android Cactus and that is something which should be celebrated. As such then, there is only score that will do and it rhymes with ‘nine point five’. Oops.