Capsized

By: Derek Yu

On: May 9th, 2011

2011-05-08_00004

For me, the second-to-last mission is where the campaign in Capsized really starts to show off its full potential, letting you gleefully bounce, grapple, wall-climb, and jetpack your way around a giant, sprawling area made up of open areas as well as dungeons. All the enemies in the game show up here in large numbers, forcing you to fight smartly, spare ammo, and hunt down hidden weapon caches. The game’s frenetic combat, open-endedness, and physics-based tools all shine here, so it’s unfortunate that it’s also so close to the end of the game.

There are some annoying design choices, too. For one thing, it’s easy to lose your foes amidst all the foliage and light bloom, an effect which I felt was overused. Also, the automatic weapon switching upon ammo depletion often means vaporizing yourself with an unexpected point blank blast of your plasma mortar.

That said, it was quite fun while it lasted. Jesse McGibney’s detailed artwork and the soundtrack, by Solar Fields, are both noteworthy. If Capsized ever gets a sequel (and it deserves one, in my opinion), then hopefully Alientrap can pull out all the stops and make something more epic.

Released: Apr 28, 2011
Price: $9.99
TIGdb: Entry for Capsized

  • Johnnoz

    This article feels like it's missing it's first paragraph…

  • http://www.derekyu.com Derek Yu

    No, I just got tired of my usual opener. Duly noted, though.

  • https://profiles.google.com/117891266186454490814 ZeppMan217

    Six hours of gameplay for 10$. Hot-seat MP only. Still, it looks and sounds great.

  • Dominic White

    Six hours? I did it in a little under two. Yeah, you could theoretically replay it on Easy, Medium and Hard difficulties, but the only change between them is you having slightly less health and enemies having more. You still have enough extra lives to brute-force your way through anything.

    But yeah, I'm definitely of the opinion that the only really good levels in Capsized (there are 12 total – 4 tutorial-ish ones, 4 terrible tunnel-crawling ones, then 3 decent ones and an underwhelming final boss) are 9 to 11. The level design really could have been SO much better, and the game proves this by having a series of really slow and awkward tunnel-crawls followed by a couple of open, explorable environments.

  • http://orpheelafondlummis.net Orphée Lafond-Lummis

    I haven't played the game, but I found myself very surprised from the video above. While the game mechanics share redundancy with thousands other games, Jesse McGibney's art is wonderful. It's not a genre I'm deeply fond of, but if I'd have an extra buck I'd definitively spend it on Capsized.

  • Grichmann

    I've only played the demo. I didn't like it – wouldn't mind it as a present, but definitely won't buy it myself.
    Might be because it reminded me a lot of Aquaria. I expected it to be more of an exploration game instead of a straight-up run and gun thingy.

  • mots

    yeah… They've said in an interview that they wanted something Arcadey, I tried the demo.. and was actually looking forward to this game

    but I wish the game had more exploration and was a little less of a shooter..

  • Phubans

    Super Metroid called…

  • anthonyflack

    Actually I kind of liked that; diving straight into what you actually wanted to say without the usual formalities.

  • anthonyflack

    It wanted to talk about how cool it is to see new games being made that are clearly inspired by the the classic BBC Micro game, Exile.

  • http://profiles.google.com/fucrate Michael Boxleiter

    ZING!

  • Guest

    The jungle levels they show in the trailer reminded me of aquaria's jungle levels too. I was hoping there would be a lot of exploration, but after playing the demo I don't think I'll get it. I didn't really like the art though. The backgrounds just look so noisy, like he drew only leaf and copied it a thousand times for the jungle.

  • rinkuhero

    i also like it like this

  • rinkuhero

    the call was for phubans. it then said 'dum'

  • Sean

    I liked it, straight to the point and it made me look up the game

  • http://twitter.com/ArrenHPark Allen

    FYI, you can actually toggle the automatic weapon switching off in the options.

  • Stoatmax

    This basically copy-pasted the artwork from Aquaria. Wow.

  • Goose

    1. I thought this was coming for XNA.  Is that not correct?
    2. I always thought this was a Metroidvania game, but from the description of “levels” it doesn't sound like it.  Can you confirm?

    Thanks!