"We are Daedalus. We are Icarus. The barriers between us have fallen and we have become our own shadows. We can be more if we join with you."
Helios is a 3D, straightforward space shooter. Its most distinguishing feature, if you ask me, is that it's played exclusively with the mouse. It's altogether functional minus a few manageable flaws and, ultimately, it's a fun experience. Here's why:
First, let's talk about presentation, which is something this game absolutely nails. As soon as you start it up, the game greets you with a fun, active electronic tune, which is a sped up version of a song I remember hearing in other games, so either the guys who provide DigiPen with their music were out of ideas or someone on this game's team decided to leave an auditory mark on their project, which I can respect.
The sun in the background contrasts beautifully with the space atmosphere (or lack thereof...hehe) and the bright trail of your ship is a delight to behold...not that you'll have much time to behold it, because as soon as the 30-second tutorial wraps up, you're launched into an onslaught of enemies and obstacles, all well designed and fun to shoot at.
Alright, let's get into the problems with the game. Really, there are 3 big ones: a sound glitch, the enemy fire, and the obstacles.
Let's start with enemy fire. It's tiny and impossible to avoid. Mostly, this is because if an enemy situates itself right in front of you, your ship will prevent you from seeing the enemy projectiles. See, in Starfox 64, the camera is angled slightly downward so that you can see enemies that are directly in front of you. As a result, every hit you take feels like you deserved it. Here, almost every time you take damage seems like a cheap shot.
speaking of cheap shots, let's talk obstacles: All-in-all, this game controls quite well, even on my trackpad. However, dodging the giant obstacles is made artificially difficult by some sort of design flaw I might be able to point out if I were a design student. All I know as a player is that one second the opening to escape unharmed couldn't be clearer and the next you've just collided with a piece of 3-ton space debris. Not fun, not challenging, just frustrating.
Speaking of space debris, there's the sound glitch. The first song you blast away enemies to is catchy and immersive. Perfect for setting the mood. However, at some point, whether it's when you collide with space debris or when 2 pieces of space debris collide against each other, that music will stop and you will be catapulted out of the experience. Couple that with the fact that collision sound effects are way too loud and you've got yourself a real sound editing problem.
Other than all that, Helios is quite fun and definitely worth your time. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay inevitable.
Links
can't get away: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=18573
