Your hurtling through space your about to crash land on a unknown planet the cargo of the ship is sprinkling all around it's surface and the only thing you can do is brace for impact. Now the easy part is over here comes the hard part. As you step out of the smoking wreck that was your ship you have to knuckle up if your going to survive the hordes of creatures that await you. This in a nut shell is the plot for "Risk of Rain" though if your coming to this title for a deep space odyssey then look else where. Risk of Rain is a tough-as-nails action platformer with rouge-like elements.
When you first boot the game up you'll first take notice of the pixelated visuals in the vain of "SuperBrothers: Sword & Sorcery ep". The game looks fantastic from the opening cinematic to the main menu and of course the game itself there's a undeniable charm to the world and there inhabitants. The visuals are great, but what will intoxicate you is the game incredible soundtrack compose by Chris Christodoulou. It's an amazing mixture of ambient distortion, synthesize beats, and electronic rock. It will be slow and hypnotic at parts making exploration calming, but other times makes you tense up with anxiousness as you stare down the many horrors trying to destroy you.
You take control of a survivor which come in many types of classes. Each class type brings there own uniqueness for example the commando has the handy dandy talent to do a roll doge that can get you out of sticky situations or on the other hand you have the engineer who's talent is to deploy turrets to aid in battle. Each class will make you use different tactics when it comes to dispose of foes. When it comes to movement each class controls the same albeit with slight differences with speed. The bandit will be a little bit quicker then the enforcer an so on. Controls are tight and responsive which is a must in a game where your a constant moving target.
This game is brutal, but fair. It doesn't start off extremely hard it slowly builds up. See you can't pick a difficulty in a normal sense meaning going in to options or at the start of a new campaign. When you start a run you'll notice a bar in the corner of your screen. That's right you are being timed and if your not quick about traversing the levels the difficulty will rise. For example you'll start on very easy then five minutes later you will be on easy until you reach the max difficulty. Don't let the brutality of game bring you down to help even out the odds you will come across many chest, totems, energy cylinders, and shrines. These containers hold valuable items that will make facing the impending doom a little easier. When you come by these containers they will have gates you must bypass to receive the item. Sometimes it's just forking over some cash or health, but there are times it will spawn imps the must be eliminated before times runs out or in worse cases you'll get nothing at all. Finding these items can give you attributes like giving you health whenever you dispatch a foe or they can give you abilities such as a higher jump. In other case you can get a special attack like a missile strike or making a clone of yourself, but just like your class skill's these special attacks will have cool downs.
Before diving into a new run your able go into the statistics page which gives you a plethora of information such as which class you use the most, what beast killed you the most, and so on. Another thing it logs are items so your able to check what items you have discover from what you have not. Having this information is neat, but the most important thing to view in the statistics page are the challenges. Completing challenges will add new items in to the rotation and more importantly unlock new classes for you to try out.
There is a multiplayer component for Risk of Rain. You and a buddy can do local co-op or up to four players online. Co-op is a great addition to this game, but it also brings up my only gripe with the game. The online can be spotty I was still able to get into rooms and have very little lag, but it can be quite the hassle at times. There were instances of the client failing to find anyone even thou I had friends hosting as well as being in a game with a group on the verge of defeated a boss only to be disconnected it can be very frustrating. Luckily the team behind the game is working on resolving the issue it's just unfortunate that you have to deal with a buggy client until those issues are taken care of.
In conclusion Risk of Rain is one of my favorite games of 2013 hands down. The fact that I can only think of one negative is proof enough. Everything about this game is fantastically charming the look is great, the music is great, and on top of all that it plays great I can not recommend this game highly enough. So if you have ten dollars burning in you pocket then do your self a favor go buy this game and if you have four dollars extra get the soundtrack while your at it.
Risk of Rain steam store page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/248820/?snr=1_7_15__13
Chris Christodoulou bandcamp: http://chrischristodoulou.bandcamp.com/album/risk-of-rain