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Cast your minds back to 1993. The rise of the pop bands has begun, things are looking ahead towards the future and everyone is enjoying the industrial age of gaming. Enter The Chaos Engine, a plucky isometric top down shooter that dreams to immerse players in its apocalyptic setting, with the hope that its fans will be overcome with joy as they slay giant hand monsters in a tank top. Well I’ve got good news for you! The games getting revived and will soon be on steam to satisfy even the most severe retro cravings, and better yet we got to chat about it with one of the games producers, Stuart Morton! You know you want to know more, so get to it...
“But hold on a second, I never played this game and/or wasn’t even alive when it was released, WTF is it?!”
Fret ye not, for I shall explain all. The Chaos Engine could be easily compared to the rogue-likes of today (think Binding of Isaac) in which you choose 2 of the available 6 characters, each with their own skill sets and gun types, to form your party and proceed into the ravaged lands.
Gameplay takes place across an isometric 2.5D viewpoint, and will see you running and gunning across the game world, which is comprised of 4 different world ‘biomes’ with 16 levels in each. The goal is to progress through each maps obstacles, picking up power ups and respawn points as you aim for the exit. Combat involves a lot of strafing and good reaction times, as enemy projectiles can easily force you into an early grave, so fans of those on-the-rails space shooters will feel at home here with their nimble fingers.
The games 2 player party system was originally there to allow for 2 man local multiplayer back on its original platforms, and this will see a return in the remake but with the added bonus of an online multiplayer feature. When asked to elaborate, Stuart explains that the multiplayer mode in both local and online are intended to utilize a shared camera, as with the original local version. However this may change in the months leading to release, as a shared camera has been known to cause issues in the past for other games (I’m looking at you Fable 2....) and so they haven’t committed to this yet.
Those who did get the chance to play the originals will find some goodies to wet your nostalgia whistles, as those old level codes you earned back in the day will still work on the re-mastered version, providing you can remember that far back (You old git). For the most hardcore of fans, the original art style will also be included, and can be toggled on or off to allow for the complete throwback experience.
It’s nice to see a classic get some loving, even if half of the people reading this may have never heard of it. There are also plans for future Bitmap Brothers games getting some attention it seems, so the horizon may yet be showered in retro rainbows.
