Return to Sector 9

By: Derek Yu

On: July 31st, 2007

I was excited to play Return to Sector 9, because I had heard good things about the prequel. Having played it a bit, though, I’m a teensy bit disappointed.

My biggest complaint is the repetitiveness of the levels, due mainly to the lack of variety in the enemies. Every enemy moves basically the same way, fires in the same way, even from level to level… imagine going through 5 rounds of 5 waves per round of the same enemies, circle strafing them all to death and you get the picture.

My second biggest complaint is that my ship feels really clunky. Having gotten used to smaller hit boxes and faster moving ships from other shooters, the ships of RtS9 feel like giant space SUV’s.

I do, however, like the music and the way you can obtain new ships, colors, and modes through extensive play. And the bosses are genuinely interesting (although frustrating to fight because of how unwieldy your ship is). This is not a bad game, by any means. It’s just not as stellar an experience as it could be.

(Source: Indygamer)

Posted in Freeware, Shoot-em-ups, Windows | Tags: PugFugly

Lorne T Whiting

Derek! That’s no way to treat an expensive written language!

The word you’re looking for is predecessor… Wait. Maybe not. Looking up the exact of prequel definition it can mean either… Damn.

“And I said: God damn it Self, you’ve got a HELL OF A LOT TO LEARN ABOUT ROCK AND ROLL.”
haowan

I understood “prequel” to mean a successive piece of media set prior to the previously-released media.

Cambridge agrees.
Meat Loaf

How about plagiarism?
sinoth

Now when I’m not grinding for XP in an MMO, I can SHMUP grind for extra ship colors. Sweeet.
http://isadorblog.blogspot.com Isador21

lol sin!
The Hutt

I like it but Starscape and EV Nova still hold the indie 2D space combat crowns.
Lorne T Whiting

That’s what I thought too, but from dictionary.com:
“A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work or a sequel. ”

‘or sequel’.
Oob

“A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work…”

Do games count? In a way they are none of those things and in another way they are all of them. :/
Melly

Is this about the game or grammar? Because since I know shit of grammar I’ll just talk about the game.

R2S9 is a very good game. It’s really impressive the level of professionalism that’s coming out of Game Maker creations these days. The game, however, has flaws, like Derek mentioned.

The levels and enemies can get a bit repetitive, yes, though that’s not a big issue. The biggest issue is the lack of customizeable controls and the frustrating aspect of your ship having a large hitbox when the screen can be filled with bullets and enemies, making dodging and getting out of sticky situations impossible unless you use the special weapon. Which you actually have to get a number of kills to replenish for each ship. I don’t know, but that’s kind of weird, having to grind to get specials.

Many people hate the control scheme of the game since it’s so different from most others out there. It seems the author wanted to go for an all-keyboard scheme, but why not include the option to change the control to WASD and mouse? I’m very much used to playing with a mouse, so for me it would work wonders. Keep the all-keyboard scheme, but give me some options too.
Peni

Controls suck ass. Delete.

When will YOU PEOPLE learn to program a good game that doesnt suck? Gamepad support would help but basically dis gamez gayz0rz.
YOU PEOPLE

Awwwaa come on P. I’m doing my best. I pwomiss. LEAVE ME ALONE!!!#@@$@!$!$

;_;

**sobs bitterly within**
Kao Unagi

This game, is awesome. Not the best, but It fufills my need for a Shmup that I haven’t already Pwned. I really like the fact that there are alot of unlockables, but there could be more.
http://www.scnclr.de scnclr

I think the ship-collision could be a little more flexible, but the other critique I don’t share. I think that game just has the same addictive qualities like the first title I fell into. I can remember playing the first part for ages and I really hope that this game also will come this way.
Wolverine

Ship collision feels better in this than most other shooters to me. Have always hated the piloting a ship in a game that has somehow has a collision box ridiculously smaller than the ship itself. And the controls are superb. Feels precise and highly maneuvarble unlike mouse control which I always find clumsy and idiotic.

By far my most favorite shoot ’em up of recent years and a highly pleasant change from abstract shooters (I’m looking at Kenta Cho’s stuff in particular… never found even one of those games even remotely fun, cept maybe Torus Trooper but even then enjoyed thats more as a racer than a shooter). Massively addictive game and the only one in a long time where I felt compelled to get high scores.

Great work Pug.
cactus

The game lacks many things that I like in shmups. Everything in it feels far from anywhere near modern. It’s like as if Quake 2 had spawned directly after Wolfenstein without being affected of the evolution of gaming in between. Even the effects feel as if advanced from something that went down at least ten years ago.

And that may be why I find it so addictive/addicting/addictorising. In theory, I would’ve hated many of the design choices in the game, but if I loosen up on my deeply rooted preferences, I find something highly enjoyable about this game.

Takes me back to the days when all I could play were a few games by Ambrosia Software on my lousy Mac. And I really did have a lot of fun with those games, as much as I do today with R2S9.
Anonymous

The effects might not be particularly modern, but better that than simply looking like 99% of other shooters these days – glowy abstract vectors or retro stuff.
rinkuhero

Peni, you can use JoyToKey.

I agree with Cactus — most of the design decisions were decisions I wouldn’t have made, but the game works great anyway.

I like the effects though — the explosion effect when the enemies die is the best explosion effect I’ve seen in the Game Maker.
LORE

SOunds like somebody didn’t make the high-score list LOL
Tim

haha ain’t that true. :D
Radnom

o_o it’s definitely not true

I love this game – it’s great. Lasting appeal because of the many ships and unlockables, too. It’s plain old-school flavoured fun. Real nice effects IMO.