DiscStorm

When you need to solve a problem amongst gamers, what better way to do it than an all-out arena battle to the death? Or in this case, an all-out arena battle to the death with discs. DiscStorm, developed by XMPT Games and published by Mastertronic , is a top-down arena based battle game where your only weapon is a bunch of discs that can ricochet off of walls and other objects in order to defeat the enemies at hand. It's a simple game with possibly hours of fun to be had, depending on your skill and stamina as a Disc Storm Warrior. With cheery chiptune music, 4 playable characters and unlockable costumes, DiscStorm tries its best to bring back the feeling of the games of yore.

There is no story to DiscStorm, just arena after arena of disc throwing madness, testing the player's skills with what they've learned in the tutorial level that teaches you all the mechanics of the game. It's just up to you to use them properly, which means your experience with this game is ultimately determined by how good you are at picking up the controls. Learning how to dodge, deflect, dash and ricochet your discs off of walls and other objects is essential for learning how to play the game. It's fast paced gameplay so it's both fun and challenging, constantly keeping you on your toes as you throw your discs like some sort of Olympian. This game doesn't have any difficulty settings, it expects you to be an expert at the game as soon as you leave the tutorial level, and it shows by how much it tests you. You're put up against not only basic enemies that chase you all around the arena, but Disc throwing enemies, regenerating enemies that come back after you die and Jason Voorhees-looking individuals with swords. But those are only the grunts; when it comes to the bosses and the mini bosses, you're given a variety of creatures based on the level you're in. You're also given a selection of four characters that all have unique dialogue depending on the level they are in, which makes it worth it to play all of them at least once. The only differences in any of them are the colors of their discs, the things they say and their artwork. Other than that, they play virtually the same way. For the most part they are just different flavors of the same ice cream. While it would have been nice to have fought a more creative creature in the jungle level than a monkey mini boss, it was quickly made up for in the golem section, which was an actually difficult boss if you didn't figure out his pattern. A big thing with the boss fights is figuring out their attack patterns; if you mess up once there's a chance you'll get hit, and that hit could very well be your last of the entire game.

Whenever you die, the game sends you back to your last checkpoint, regenerating you to full health afterwards but your ranking at the end of the level goes down. The rankings don't mean anything other than bragging rights, but it was still a nice touch on the developer's part. Now, there is a strong chance you might die at the same area over and over again which, at times, will be your fault, but other times there's a slight issue with frame rate drops that, for a fast paced game like this, are downright atrocious. After using three different computers and finding out that it's the same on every one, I've found that this game will lag when there are too many enemies on the screen. The problem with that? It's very possible that 90 percent of your playtime in this game will have enemies or action filling up your screen. It's like the game can't process everything at once and considering how chaotic the game is, that makes it downright unplayable at times. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happened enough to ruin many play sessions. This can probably be fixed in a patch, but to have a problem like this in a game that markets itself with 4 player multiplayer in mind at launch is inexcusable.

Multiplayer is a thing in this game, but it isn't online multiplayer; its 4 player local multiplayer. This is fine in theory, but when releasing a game like this on Steam with a community who loves nothing more than destroying each other in multiplayer arenas, one would think that online multiplayer would be a must, especially in this day in age. They do talk about the awesome local multiplayer, but if you're playing this game on Steam how often are you going to be able to drag your friends over to your house, get them all to bring their own gear and then play it? Or they're going to ask to play TF2 instead since that actually has online multiplayer. There's nothing wrong with having it local if it was just a console game. But, since this game is also on Steam, it means that it's going to be played by people online and who want to be online. Wouldn't it make more sense to give it an online multiplayer?

The multiplayer mode itself is pretty basic, things like capture the flag, deflect other players' discs, and survive in a battle royale, standard things like that. There aren't any sort of special modes and you're not rewarded with anything after playing multiplayer other than achievements, in stark contrast to single-player where each level lets you unlock an outfit for one of the player characters that you can wear on your character. At least there's some sort of reward for each thing rather than just an achievement.

DiscStorm is a fun arena-based game but it doesn't seem like a finished product. There are a lot of elements to it that can keep people playing for hours, but after a while when the “new toy” feeling fades away you may just find yourself wondering what can you do now. There's a strong chance it'll be improved in later patches but for now, only play this game if you honestly enjoy arena-based games with a unique spin.

Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)