Gunlocked

Excellent game, try not to let the games simplicity fool you, this is a unique type of shmup where you don't have a fire button and weapons and abilities charge, you move around the level and position yourself to shoot down as many objects and enemies as possible to level up and upgrade your ship with a myriad of weapons and utilities. There is a ton of combinations and other things to explore that it will keep you playing for a very long time. The graphics are really good, and the controls are smooth, and as far as difficulty goes, remember that it will not hold your hand, you have to be patient and move carefully to make every shot count. You do have different controls like the GamePad mouse and keyboard, but I prefer to use the keyboard because it's very instant. The only falls I can think of is that we could use more customization on the ships and some parts of the game are tough. Highly recommended if you love shmups and want a good comfort shooter where you can only worry about moving! Can't wait for gunlocked 2!

Very arcade style, many choices while playing, cool upgrade system, fun game. Dev knew exactly what he was doing, to get that coin-up era feeling. Like missiles strafing sideways, and other tech-no-logical "good old days" oddities. Oh... as I'm writing this, I'm seeing on Steam background "FEATURED: Gunlocked 2 Has Launched" -- Ahhh FFS! ^^;;

super fun unique take on bullet hell

I'd love to say 10,000 words about this game but then no one will read it. I'm just gonna say, if you enjoy 'roguelikes' and 'survivor'-like games like Nova Drift (another phenomenal game), Brotato, Death Must Die, Deep Rock Survivor, etc. then you will love this. I owned this for quite some time before I gave it a fair shot, as I wasn't used to the.... shmup-i-ness in a roguelike (yes, Nova Drift is a space shooter, too, but it's not a scrolling one like this). Started playing it the other day and I'm already up to 41 hours.... it's crazy good. The hours-of-fun-per-dollar here is astronomical. I already bought part 2 (that just came out in EA), but I'm still having so much fun with this one and have barely unlocked any of the synergy upgrades, so I'm gonna keep playing this one for a minute before diving into part 2 (which is supposedly even better, and still a great deal). EDIT: Wow, I forgot to mention -- this/these devs have some of the best-looking pixel art (esp the bosses), and the music is just as amazing (sounds just like an old school NES classic - reminds me a lot of Mega Man!)

Overall it's a thumbs up for me. I enjoyed the game and played it for longer than I play a lot of other games. If I could make any change to the game it'd be the weapons. Some are fine but many are kind of crappy. Even though there are some synergies I never found any of them satisfying. I make this review not to bash the game but because I know the developer is working on Gunlocked 2 and I hope to offer feedback.

All weapons are weird to use, but this is the core idea of the game and is by design Main problem - is that all weapons feel either weak or too sophisticated or clunky to use Meaning it is hard to really have fun. I did enjoy this game to some extent, but overall I feel it was not worth the time spent. Also it seems that GunLocked 2 is in progress, and judging by the news it is going to be almost exactly the same, just somewhat (better?), and I don't like this concept - this first game could benefit from updates instead. If there was a neutral option - I would have gone for it with my review, as the game is not bad.

I imagine it must be difficult to have a shooter feel distinct, but this one definitely does it for me. Small tight play sessions that start off slow, but then crank up the heat near the end of the second and throughout the third segments of a zone playthrough. It's all in the weapons - it's fun working within their limitations, and because it also means a limited range, this game wants you take full advantage of moving all around the screen. You can't destroy every enemy you come across, so there's strategy enemies to make a priority, or what ones need to be taken out for you to get some daylight to squeak through a bad spot of enemies and traps. Upgrades are intuitive, and the augments are pretty generous, the most useful by far, to me, being "The Sure Thing". Some starter weapons feel weaker than others, but since you can carry up to four weapons of your choice as you progress through the zone, that's not so bad. Bosses, I'm not quite sure what's going on there. I've got nearly four hours and almost half the achievements and I feel like there's not a lot of feedback on whether or not I'm doing any damage because I don't think there's any sound design to signify you're doing damage. It's just glancing at its health bar. This game's a great value for its price, and the DLC's just three bucks, absolutely worth it. Recommended.