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Gravity Core Review

Rating:

Gravity Core is an excellent procedurally generated shooter. It's a slow burner that might test your patience form time to time, but Gravity Core is worth every penny.

Additional Info

DeveloperSuisoft
GenreShooter
PlatformsWindows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
EngineUnknown
Filesize17.5 MB
Webpagehttp://www.suisoft.co.uk/gravitycore/

Full Review

I'm zooming through the catacombs on some alien rock in my spaceship when suddenly I'm ambushed by enemy ships. There are turrets all over the walls, and I'm going too fast to turn back without smashing into a wall and killing myself. My goal is in sight, so I turn on my side thrusters and with a quick manoeuvre dodge the enemies and launch a bomb straight into their factory. It explodes, killing a few enemy ships, as I turn upwards and head for the surface. But then, on my way up, a massive enemy ship blocks the narrow tunnel. I try to dodge out of the way, but I have too much momentum. Both me and the enemy are destroyed in a massive explosion, debris flying everywhere. At least I took him down with me, eh?

Each new campaign of Gravity Core is randomly generated, right down to the individual levels. This means that every stage is really just a mesh of various different game elements: catacombs, turrets, enemy patterns, collectables etc. 'Mesh' sounds bad, but it's not; situations like the one described above only emerge because the game isn't scripted in any significant way.

I played through one whole campaign, as well as a few levels from another just to try out the campaign generation, in a few long sittings. However, I can see the game being more enjoyable in short bursts over a long period of time, since it slow, methodical progress, upgrading your ship and completing each level. The campaign I did complete took about 3-4 hours, but I have no idea how much that varies.

The movement might take a while to get used to, but once you get the hang of it you can pull off some tricky manoeuvres. There's nothing quite like turning off your thrusters and watching your ship float weightlessly down a long tunnel, knowing you've calculated it's trajectory perfectly. The shooting feels responsive, and the enemy AI reacts consistently.

The only problems I have with Gravity Core are that the menus are a chore to navigate, and don't look very good at all. There's also a weird glitch when you press the shield button and the fire button at the same time, which causes your ship to do... well, nothing, leaving you open to enemy attacks.

Aside from a few issues, Gravity Core is a really deep experience with some interesting design. If you've got the time to invest, I'd definitely recommend it at it's current price ($11.99 US/ £5.99 GB).

Posted by Joseph Gribbin on June 18, 2010 Comments (2)


Gary Marples said at 2010-06-19 17:32:

Thanks for the review Joseph. I'm glad you got to grips with the intertia and enjoyed blasting around the tunnels.

The fire/shield button glitch is down to a really frustrating limitation in the Direct-X support of analogue triggers. They are treated as one axis (i.e. -100% to +100%) and pressing both gives a value of 0%.

There is a way round it with something called XInput that only supports Microsoft XBOX 360 (and 100% compatible) controllers. It wouldn't help with third party Windows-specific ones. I'll have to look into using it for the next release/game.

Cheers, Gary


Derek Kamal said at 2010-06-20 00:33:

Glad you got this one and not me, Joe. I was ready to punch my monitor in the face after my first few tries. I'm no good with this kind of thing ;)