XBLA Indie Review: Pew Pew Pod
“The Unofficial Geometry Wars…3?”
An XboxHornet Review By WDesm.
Bad Egg Studios, as discussed in our recent interview, isn’t about developing the most exotic and obscure game possible, but rather focused their time refining and perfecting their entrant into the twin stick shooter genre. The result? A finished product that looks more like a souped-up version of Geometry Wars 2 than it does it anything else. But isn’t imitation the highest form of praise? It would certainly seem so….
Pew Pew Pod is a twin stick shooter overlaid with a suspiciously familiar array of neon baddies to destroy. The key trick here is that you have four distinct weapons to play with, each colour-coded to A,B,Y, or X on the 360 controller (and double-mapped to the triggers and bumpers for ease in combat), and each weapon has different spreads, mechanics, and rates of fires. The extreme variance in gun mechanics (machinegun, shotgun, torpedos, or lasers, respectively) means that the most tactical gamer will really need to know when and how to swap weapons to stay alive, and the HUD changes colour to tell you what weapon is currently selected.
Pew Pew Pod includes a total of six game modes – Arcade, a 3-minute high score fest; Survival, where staying alive is the biggest points-earner; Waypoint, where you need to tag the identified spots on the map to get points; Zones, where you earn points by staying in the randomly-spawning hotspots; ThinkFast!, where you only earn points by following the order on screen (don’t move is a killer, trust me); and Versus, a multiplayer deathmatch arena. All of the above modes can be played 2-4 local multiplayer (and, obviously, the last mode mentioned requires it), and there is a global high score leaderboard to show off your stuff.
If you’ve played Geometry Wars, then you’ll be instantly familiar with this game, and that’s not a bad thing. Pew Pew Pod is more of a good thing, and it’s well done, polished, and adds enough new content and creative gameplay to make it worth your time. The global leaderboard will give the most competitive gamer an excuse to keep playing, and the rock-bottom price will give the most frugal gamer an excuse to pick it up.
Pew Pew Pod 9/10
Watch a trailer of the game here.
Download a demo of the game here.
BONUS: Too cheap to pay 80MSPoints for Pew Pew Pod? Pick your favourite neon colour from the four available in Pew Pew Pod (just post a comment below), and a random entrant will win a copy of the game on Monday, April 5th, 2010!
23 Responses to “XBLA Indie Review: Pew Pew Pod”
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Green is the most vectory and retro of all colors.
Red represents death and destruction.
From the demo, it seemed like the control is a little more “slippery” than Geometry Wars, if that makes any sense. Aside from that, I was disappointed that the actual name was not “Pew Pew Poo” as it looks from the box art at first glance.
I say green is also my favorite neon color, just because it reminds me of the old school computer consoles that were black and green.
I like the neon blue!
Blue is my favorite color, in general and in this game. I don’t know why, but I seem to do better with the lasers.
My favourtie neon colour from the four avaiable in Pew Pew Pod is the yellow. There’s something about the luminous yellow that goes really well with the space setting in the background.
I like the blue, always been my favorite color. Game looks neat actually!
My favorite is green!
Well, just looking at the screens above, I would have to say Neon Green is my favorite – it stands out a bit more than the others…and that is what being neon is all about!
Clearly the best color is the neon-blue, it’s almost teal, which is almost turquoise, so basically that’s 3 colors in one, I don’t think the others can even compete with that unless maybe you introduce a tope coloured ship
I would have to say green because if my son found out I’d not picked his favourite colour, he’d kill me.
The neon blue looks awesome in addition to filling the screen with bouncing bullets o’plenty.
Red is definately the best neon color from the 4.
I like the color blue.
Blue is fun, but the torpedoes are awesome
I’m going with the yellow since nobody seems to love it.
Blue is Purty!
Green for me!
The neon blue is rather nice. After all, blue is my favourite colour.
looks pretty sweet and a lot of fun
definately red
Wow! Last but not least, “paul” earns the code! Congrats, I’ll mail it out in a few seconds! Stay tuned for more codes – I have a whole slew of XBLIG codes burning a whole in my pocket, including GAME OF THE YEAR MATERIAL Flotilla!
[...] and their neon frantic movements are more in line with Geometry Wars (or, for the Indie comparison, Pew Pew Pod). Enemy formations change, and some ships will dart off to the side, while others rush towards [...]
[...] been created out of isolating each game mode, much like Geometry Wars (or, for an XBLIG example, Pew Pew Pod) [...]