I'm sorry that I haven't posted any of these things in ages(I've been really busy and I haven't even visited the site in a while), but I haven't abandoned the series. I actually would have posted this shortly after my last one, but my review got deleted and I didn't have the time or energy to rewrite it. Here begins the Autofire competition.
The Autofire competition was a major comeback after the Dragon SHMUP contest. A total of sixteen entries were recieved, and even the lowest-ranking entry was described as "decent" by the contest judges. I, however, will review the highest-ranking entry, Clean Asia:
Clean Asia is one of the most original shoot-em-ups that I have ever played. There are two modes, "Attractor" and "Reflector", and the Attractor mode is the main attraction. In this mode, the player can ram enemy ships, breaking off pieces and using the debris as ammunition for the main cannon. The accumulated debris can also be released all at once, dealing lots of damage - which breaks off more chunks of the enemy, which supplies more debris. It's a lot of fun to keep a cycle going. Reflector mode is nice, too, but it's too conventional for the game that it's in.
The levels are extremely different from each other, almost to the point of being seperate sub-games. Taiwan(remember, this is in Asia) is good for beginners, with straightforwards enemy and bullet patterns. Korea's ships have powerful gun turrets, which can be captured by the player and used as their own. China's the most unique - debris constantly flows up from the bottom of the screen, turning the player's focus more toward dodging and evasion(it has the densest bullet patterns of any of the levels, by far). All of the levels are different, but none are any less fun than the others.
Depending on your point of view, the graphics are either really good or really primitive. Everything is vector-based, with no glow effects to spice up the lines of the enemy ships. The ships themselves, incidentally, are made of large blocks - which isn't really surprising when the game mechanics are considered. The graphics' real strength lies in the sheer number of objects that can be on the screen at once - debris billows out in huge clouds of tiny squares, which fly toward the player ship(a white dot) in streams. Enemy explosions are also great, mixing bare vector circles with clouds of more debris. I love it.
As per usual with Cactus' games(yes, the same Cactus that I mentioned ages ago in WhiteRabbit's freeware thread), the sound is unique. The music in the first level, for example, is composed almost entirely of distorted voice samples, and it manages to work quite well. The sound effects are appropriately minimalist, in keeping with the rest of the game's style, and the whole package is coherent and pleasing.
If I have one gripe about Clean Asia, though, it's the storyline. People's eyeballs have rebelled, building spaceships to take over Asia and use it as a base of operations. Two American pilots(Mickey and Mackey Dole), though, have developed extra senses, allowing them to see the enemy, as well as giving them reaction times quick enough to dodge the enemy bullets(apparently, they actually travel at real-world speeds). I would never have been able to make it up - it almost sounds like something out of Scientology's canon.
When starting the game, the player is greeted with the cryptic phrase, "You will all regret what you've done to me, the day that your eyes turn against their masters", accompanied by double-ended, rainbow-colored flashlights falling in the background and simple, drum-based music. It's weird, but in a good way - like most of Cactus' stuff. It also runs flawlessly, even after [Alt-Tab]ing out of it and back in(that's how I copied the quote at the beginning). It's pretty close to perfect in those regards.
Overall, I give Clean Asia a score of 7.6(nine for gameplay, eight for graphics, eight for sound, four for theme, and nine for presentation and finish). It's an exceptional game, and deserved its victory, but its strangeness may be a turn-off to some. Actually, calling something made by Cactus strange is like calling Ferraris fast - it's something to be taken for granted.
Download the game here.
Download the converter that will allow it to run on Vista here.
Stay tuned(metaphorically speaking) for the next installment in my series, which will hopefully be on time!
