A free 'arcade shooter' available from the XBOX360 marketplace. Simple but fun. Dont expect anything flashy.
The Good
1 - Decent, though cheesy, engaging story for an arcade shooter.
2 - Great fun with a couple of freinds.
3 - Great variety in weapons and enemies.
4 - Intense, fast and graphically suprising gameplay.
5 - Good, detailed, graphical features of enviroments.
6 - Fantastic amount of weapons, enemies and firepower on the screen at once.
7 - Full achievement support, leaderboards and online co-op up to 4 players.
The Bad
1 - Extremely short experience.
2 - Overall enjoyment period limited to usually less than an hour.
3 - Extremely hard single player game.
4 - Not so much fun alone.
5 - Annoying repetetive soundtrack.
Aegis Wing, is a free internally developed project from Microsoft. It was developed and the designers decided the game was simply too good to be left as an internal project, and released it free on the marketplace. Like any free to play game my opinion was pretty much bored going into Aegis Wing, but soon my boredom turned to utter suprise and enjoyment. With a decent enough story, fantastically fun 4 player co-op and fullly supported by achievements and leaderboards, Aegis Wing is a fantastic package and it costs nothing.
The storyline is, extremely cheesy, though simply fun and classic. Based around the old traditional Alien Invasion, player's take control of a prototype warship and are tasked with laying waste to the Alien warmachine. Original? No it isnt, but like most Sci Fi stories, if your a fan, no doubts you'll like it. Graphically, the smooth, fast gameplay of Aegis Wing is truely marvelous for a free side scrolling shooter. The eerie spaceship graveyards, alien warships, deep space and eventually an earthlike atmosphere, are all presented brilliantly for such a game. There is a suprising amount of detail and size gone into the enviroments and player's cant help feel a sense of awe as the player flies past one of the alien ships giant cannons. Do not be expecting absolutely amazing graphics, but it is a pleasant suprise seeing such effort in the game.
There is sadly, a downright annoying soundtrack, that seems to have been added it the last minute. It is basic and repeats over and over again, now i did not go into this game expecting a massive, epic soundtrack but i certainly expected not to be annoyed by a games music. Though I may just be being picky, it has however turned into an inside joke with a few freinds. Humming that stupid darn 'Aegis Wing' tune. Bad but good i suppose.
The gameplay is just as you'd expect from a side scrolling shooter, it's side scrolling of course. Players take the roll of one of 4 coloured spaceships, and pilot there ship through a side scrolling beautiful level that contains asteroids to avoid and alien ships to blast, picking up extra weapons along the way and the numerous boss. Where Aegis Wing succeeds above all else, is it's fantastic multiplayer gameplay. When paired up with freinds players can merge there ships together, creating larger ships, and eventually a 4 man 'Epic Combination'. This not only turns you into the ultimate bad-ass, it changes the scale of the weapons you use and your speed and navigation abilities. Other than this amazing multiplayer experience Aegis Wing is most commonly similair to most other side scrolling space shooters. But a combination of a ridicilious amount of enemies at once that do vary in size, speed and difficulty, interesting locations and bosses, great weapons and fantastic multiplayer gameplay, make it one of the best Side Scrolling games ive played, and its all for free!
Overall, my experience of Aegis Wing was a fantastically humurous and enjoyable one when it lasted. The challenging achievements, co-op and features i have mentioned above make it a great game. Though it lacks in some area's Aegis Wing is a fantastic, free package and should be downloaded by anyone who enjoys a good while of Old School side scrolling action.