The game doesn’t waste time getting started. You’re immediately dropped into the power armor of a member of the Resistance, a group of tight-knit humans led by The Colonel (yes, most of the cast is a proper noun). Who are they resisting? The Mothergunship, who is leading an alien invasion of Earth. The main plot is pretty throwaway, to be honest. It’s most there to give you an excuse to get on alien ships and blow any hundreds of nasty robots.

What the plot and characters do offer, however, is a way to poke fun at video game tropes and the cheesy voice acting and video game humor is both surprisingly self-aware – there’s a particularly annoying anthropomorphic frog who clearly there at the expense of Star Fox’s Slippy toad – and fairly funny, at least most of the time. Some jokes land better than others – I never like being told how much I suck after failing a mission, personally, and some of the video game humor is too cute for its own good – but The Colonel and the crew provide some entertaining background chatter as you murder your way across various aliens ships.

"The core gameplay loop is pretty simple. You choose either a story or side mission – story missions advance the plot, while side missions give you parts for crafting guns – then you’re dropped into a series of randomly generated rooms where you’ll fight through hordes of alien robots."

The core gameplay loop is pretty simple. You choose either a story or side mission – story missions advance the plot, while side missions give you parts for crafting guns – then you’re dropped into a series of randomly generated rooms where you’ll fight through hordes of alien robots, gaining experience that can be used to upgrade your power suit and cold hard cash that you can spend on gun parts – more on that later. Like any good rogue-like, this system means that no two levels are ever the same, which gives the game an air of excitement and replayability it wouldn’t otherwise have.

There are some flaws with the game’s level design, however. While the overall layout of a mission will never be the same, the layout of specific rooms never changes, which means things will start to look repetitive after a while. In addition, the levels only come in three visuals style, so things can get very familiar very quickly. The game compensates by making sure the order of the rooms is different every time, and that the contents of any individual room, from the enemies spawned within it to the rewards they’ll drop, change, too.

There are also challenge rooms for you to enter, which feature special twists like a jump pad, a poisoned floor, or require you to survive for a certain amount of time, and offer enhanced rewards. The opportunity for more stuff is good because when you die – and you will, a lot – you’ll lose not only the items you chose to bring with you, but anything you may have found or purchased in that level, too, aside from experience. Die enough, and you might find yourself poorly equipped to attempt another run. That’s when side missions start to look really appealing.

"You can keep things simple and efficient by rolling with a modified machine gun that shoots really fast, but you can also do something insane, like making a twelve part gun that features a rocket launcher, a flamethrower, and a railgun. And did I mention you can dual-wield?"

That’s where the ability to build your own utterly ridiculous weapons comes in. Mothergunship runs at a very fast pace (think DOOM or Quake) and age-old techniques like strafing are essential, but you only start off with your absurdly powerful hydraulic fists and a triple jump (which can be upgraded up to 40 jumps because staying on the ground is for losers). It’s up to you to build your own weapons. You do this with parts, which can be carried into a level with you or purchased at in-mission stores with cash dropped by enemies.

You have three core parts at your disposal: connecting parts allow you to mount other parts to them, modifiers alter the various aspects of your gun, and barrels determine what kind of gun it is. You can build and alter your guns at crafting stations mid-mission, and the level of freedom available is impressive. You can keep things simple and efficient by rolling with a modified machine gun that shoots really fast, but you can also do something insane, like making a twelve part gun that features a rocket launcher, a flamethrower, and a railgun. And did I mention you can dual-wield? Imagine one of these bad boys – or one of your own creation – on each arm. Those robots don’t stand a chance.

The best part is that, just when you think you can’t make your guns any more ridiculous, you’ll find a part or rotate a piece of the weapon in such a way that will allow you to add to it. This allows you to make some pretty absurd guns that add fun effects, like pushback or gravity, forcing you to switch up your movement styles. The catch is that the more parts you add to a gun, the more ammo it consumes to fire. You can’t run out of ammo in Mothergunship – it’s a renewable resource for each weapon that recharges fairly quickly – but there’s nothing worse than waiting for your gun to recharge while you’re being swarmed by enemies.

" Mothergunship’s sound design is great, but my game had a bug that prevented me from ever hearing all of it at once. Everything worked fine when I was standing still, but the audio started skipping badly whenever I moved."

If there’s one disappointing thing about the weapons system it’s that the game doesn’t give you many opportunities to experiment outside of your HQ’s firing range. You’ll learn what works together fairly quickly, but the urge to experiment inside a mission is small since the costs of dying are so high. Another shortcoming is that missions can start to feel fairly samey after a while, despite Grip Digital’s clear attempts to keep things fresh. The endgame helps alleviate this, as it features a number of special missions that challenge you to run through them without dying, but it’s easy to become bored during long play sessions, especially if you’re having trouble progressing.

The game also suffers from a number of bugs. Enemies will sometimes get stuck in the environments, unable to move but perfectly able to attack. That, however, is a minor issue compared to the problems I had with the game’s audio. Mothergunship’s sound design is great, but my game had a bug that prevented me from ever hearing all of it at once. Everything worked fine when I was standing still, but the audio started skipping badly whenever I moved. I managed to fix this by turning the effects volume off completely in the main menu, but that meant that I couldn’t hear sound effects from enemies, my character walking, or what it sounded like when things took damage. This error persists despite numerous efforts to correct it on my part, and as of this writing, it still hasn’t been patched. It’s a huge flaw in an otherwise enjoying game.

When Mothergunship is firing from both (or all) its barrels, it’s a very good time. The action is fast and enjoyable and the gun crafting system is an absolute joy to use. Unfortunately, however, the game can be repetitive and frustrating in long stretches – this is especially true when you fail and lose good gun parts – and the bugs I experienced detracted from the game in meaningful ways. With some fixes, changes, and additional content, Mothergunship could be something special. Right now, it’s merely competent. It’s a shame, too. There’s a great core here; it just needs a little love, and maybe a few extra parts.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

We have been waiting a while to know when Mothergunship, the roguelike bullet-hell first-person shooter, will be releasing. The release date for the game has now been revealed and you won’t have to wait much longer to get your hands on the game. Along with the announcement of the release date, a brand new gameplay trailer has also been revealed.

The game is set to release on July 17, which is just a few weeks away. This means that players will soon be able to create their own weapons and then try these out in different environments. The new trailer also gives us a glimpse of the gameplay and the action looks fast-paced, chaotic, and a lot of fun. The trailer also shows off some of the amazing kinds of weapons that players will be able to create and use in the game.

You can check out the new trailer below. Mothergunship is set to release for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

The wait for Mothergunship, developed by Grip Digital and Terrible Posture Games (of Tower of Guns fame), has been more than a little long at this point. It’s still scheduled for a 2018 release and we have received a demo showcasing the depth of gun-crafting available. However, we’re interested to see how the rogue-like bullet-hell first person shooter will perform on consoles like the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro.

To learn more, GamingBolt reached out to Grip Digital’s marketing and PR manager George Mamakos about the resolution and frame rate of both versions. He responded that, “The resolution on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X versions will be Full HD and the frame rate will be from 60 to 30 fps. We are going to continue supporting the game after its launch with free content updates and improvements, so the plan is to increase the quality of the performance and resolution on all platforms.”

The “free content updates” part has us especially interested. Mothergunship will see players entering various randomized enemy ships to eventually defeat an invading armada. The ability to customize one’s arsenal to an insane degree while also playing with friends in co-op should help extend the game’s lifespan. What more could the developers add on top? Hopefully more information will be offered after Mothergunship releases for PS4, Xbox One and PC so stay tuned.

Although the Xbox One Scorpio and PS4 Pro may end up extending the span of this generation by a few years, the fact of the matter remains that a proper next generation PlayStation 5 (and, who knows, a next generation Xbox as well- in spite of Microsoft’s claims to the contrary) will end up coming eventually.

If it does- what can we expect from it? 10 TFLOPs GPUs? Full photorealism in graphics? That was the question we asked Jakub Mikyska of grip-digital, the developers of Mothergunship. His response? Photorealism is, in the end, a moving target- a potential PS5 may bring us closer to it than we ever have been before, but actually hitting it is no guarantee.

“Closer? Sure. We’re always moving closer,” he said. “People thought that we had “hit” photorealism with the 360 generation. And then again with the Xbox One generation. But “photorealism” is a moving target that rushes away from you as fast as you run toward it. We’re not even “there” with offline rendering yet in film. In games, we’re getting environments much closer, and a better GPU helps that tremendously (have a look at Quixel Megascans for some teasers of the future), and we’ve made great strides on faces too (particularly on subsurface skin shading and hair shaders), but now we’re going to start realizing just how limited our animation tools are, and how stiff and unrealistic those faces are..or how choppy our shadows look or how ghostly the screenspace-AO feels in motion. There’s always room for improvement.”

Certainly he is right- there was definitely a time when people thought returns on graphics had hit a plateau back with the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube- but as we all know, graphics have continued to greatly advance since nonetheless. What kind of jumps in visual fidelity are brought to the table by the hypothetical PS5 remains to be seen- but we can hope they will be as impressive as every new generation of graphics tech has been so far.

The Xbox One Scorpio will be an incredibly powerful console– but ultimately, it is still a part of the existing Xbox One ecosystem, and it will be tied inextricably to the base Xbox One console. This is reflected in everything about the Scorpio’s design, and in the fact that it will have no exclusives- all of its games must run on the base Xbox One, too?

Given this, does the Scorpio actually stand a chance of appealing to a market the original Xbox One already failed to appeal to, much? Will the lack of exclusives end up hurting the system? When we got the chance to talk to Jakub Mikyska of grip-digital, the folks behind Mothergunship, we asked him if he thought the lack of exclusives may hurt the system’s chances on the market.

“Exclusives always help sell systems, that’s true,” Mikyska mused. “Microsoft knows that, but I’m sure they also have calculated the cost/benefits of this release extensively. The “parity game” isn’t a new one though. Between opposing consoles there are often requirements that games have certain parity—original Xbox developers had to reconcile their gameplay with that on the PS2, PS3 and the 360 had their differences, PS4 and XB1 do as well. The fact that this is intra-brand and mid generation doesn’t mean it isn’t something developers aren’t used to. Additionally, engines allow for a lot more scalability these days, making the logistics of this branching slightly less painful.”

Microsoft’s unique UWP scalability means that developing for the Scorpio should be rather easy and trivial for the developers in the end, especially given the massive gains in performance and graphics that they will see. Still, I imagine that if Scorpio had some exclusive games of its own, Microsoft may have sold more of it than they will now, where it is just a higher priced Xbox for those who own a 4KTV.

Terrible Posture Games and Grip Digital have today announced a brand new bullet hell game for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC- Mothergunship (which, the name should really give the genre of the game away, if you think about it).

While the game will be your typical bullet hell game, pitting you against waves upon waves of enemies to take on, you are also going to get the game’s gun crafting system, which the developers describe as the ‘one of the most modular gun crafting systems ever in a game’. So there’s that to look forward to, too.

You can check out the announcement teaser trailer for the game for yourself below- does this sound like the kind of game that you would be interested in picking up for yourself? Let us know in the comments section, and make sure to stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage and information on the game.

Naughty Dog may not be giving us a new Jak and Daxter game any time soon, but it seems like we’re going to get something a lot like it pretty soon anyway. Skylar & Plux: Adventure on Clover Island is a brand new 3D action platformer by Grip Digital and Right Nice Games, and it will be made in the same vein as the Jak and Daxter games.

“Skylar & Plux: Adventure on Clover Island is a passionate homage to the 3D platformers of our youth,” said Right Nice Games’ level designer and narrative director Eric Valentine. “Go on an action packed adventure, collecting gadgets helping you explore a beautiful paradise and save it from evil.”

“Anyone who enjoys the classic 3D platformers like Crash Bandicoot or the Jak and Daxter series will instantly fall in love with Skylar & Plux,” added Jakub Mikyska, CEO of Grip Digital. “There’s a lot of personality and humor, colorful characters and hours of great gameplay for the fans of the genre, as well as newcomers to the 3D platformer games.”

Skylar and Plux: Adventure on Clover Island will launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC later this year.

GRIP Digital s.r.o. and Teotl Studios’ The Solus Project just got a brand new eight minute long gameplay trailer; the new trailer shows us the environment that players will be immersing themselves in, in this new first person survival game. In this video, you can see the dynamic weather, puzzle, and survival elements that will lead to an emergent for of gameplay when players play the title.

The Solus Project strands you on an alien planet, and challenges you to get to grips with the harsh environment as you struggle to find a way to send a signal home, and save the human race in the process. Basically, think of it as a video game based on Interstellar. It is the first ever product to come out of the unique partnership of GRIP Digital and Teotl.

The Solus Project will be releasing in early 2016 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Microsoft’s indie parity clause has been a subject of much debate ever since Microsoft announced the ID@Xbox policy at Gamescom 2013. Several developers in the past have outright mentioned their grievances with the parity clause whereas some have taken a neutral stance on it. In the past, Xbox One executives have mentioned that the parity clause can be tweaked if developers speak to them and bring along exclusive content for the Xbox platform.

Grip Games’ Tower of Guns is one of the many indie games that is available on both PS4 and Xbox One. GamingBolt recently got in touch with Grip Games’ Jakub Mikyska to have a chat on several topics including the indie policies of both companies. Surprisingly, Jakub revealed that Sony have their own set of parity policies as well, although he did not mentioned what it includes.

“Both Sony and Microsoft have their own policies and things you have to keep in order to be able to self-publish. Sony has certain parity policies as well. Both have certain content requirements, etc.”

He further explains that Microsoft’s policy on indies are not unfair and if developers speak to them, things can be worked on and agreed upon.

“I think that Microsoft’s requirements are not unreasonable and are quite understandable and what’s more, if you cannot keep them for any reason, you usually just need to ask and give a good reason and anything can be agreed on. We never really had any issue with Microsoft’s policies,” Jakub explained to GamingBolt.

These comments by Jakub possibly indicate that there are a lot of things going in the background that none of us really know. But what are your thoughts on this matter? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tower of Guns for the PlayStation 4 launched recently and GamingBolt was able to conduct an interview with the game’s developer Jakub Mikyska from Grip Games. In our interview we asked Jakub what kind of advantages did the unified memory architecture brought to the development of Tower of Guns.

“Our games aren’t really pushing the envelope of visuals enough for GDDR5 to make any difference,” he said to GamingBolt. But he did shared his views on how developers are feeling about GDDR5 and the PS4’s GPU.  “From what we hear from other developers, working on AAA projects, they really like GDDR5. The GPU is working quite fine. It is not the most advanced piece of GPU out there, but it does not have to be. When creating games for just one GPU, you can be much more effective.”

“And like any other technology, it will all become obsolete eventually. But that does not matter now. Consoles are about making the most with the hardware you currently have.”

Tower of Guns is now available on the PS4. We recently reviewed the game on the PS4 which you can check out over here.