Bloc Media is responsible for the latest Club 404 diversion on Sony's Playstation UK website: an amazing Flash shooter that is packed with fun and gameplay to boot. And you're in for a real treat, because just a peek under the hood of this little shmup reveals a stash of pleasant surprises.
Head Space is an old-school style 2D shooter in the classic sense: pilot a space ship and fire weapons upon what seems a never ending barrage of enemy waves. But wait! ...it's better than that.
Once you beat the first few waves of somewhat ordinary enemy types, the real fun begins. The game then rewards you with some of the best boss fights to ever appear in a Flash game. And not just one, but boss after boss are sent out to own you, each with its own unique AI movement and attack.
Controls for this game depend on how you like to play. If you're one who enjoys using the keyboard arrow keys for moving and pressing the space bar to fire... by all means use them. On the other hand, if you enjoy the control that a mouse provides and clicking for firing weapons, you'll feel right at home. This game features both, and each with its own ship!
What's even better is the game allows you to play both ships at the same time in a 2-player cooperative mode! Start a new game with a friend, or have him start midway through the game. Either way, each player begins with 5 lives and plays until they're gone.
Also featured are power-ups to upgrade your weapons with and 1-ups for extra lives. I found the best weapon to be the missile (M) since missiles are of the homing variety. Once you upgrade your weapon it's your's only until you lose a life, and then it reverts back to the twinkie that you start with.
If you couldn't already tell, I love this game. It's absolutely brilliant, and one of the best Flash shmups I've seen. Don't wait, play it now. Click.
I can tell you really like this...
It's a pretty cool game, very original, but the raindrops are kinda of hard to see.
The background is really neat to-It's like a connection to the real world. hat's off to this game. = )
Jay B - can you put more games than 1 by 1 each day.Tx
1 a day is fantastic. Good games don't get made that often, and the difficulty in finding some make them even rarer; if he put up games any faster he'd be setting himself up for a drought later on.
I agree with Capuchin. It is difficult finding good quality games, like Head Space, that I would consider posting here. It also takes time to find them, time to play them, and time to write up a proper review of them as well.
If someone wanted to pay me to write more reviews per day, I would consider it. =)
Looking back, there have been occasions of more than one entry. For example, March 22, 2005.
Similar games could be connected, but the odds of finding them at the same time are rare. I'm quite impressed with one a day = ).
Thanks Brandon. =)
By the way, what's your top score for Head Space? Mine is 11950.
17th on the highscore list!
I could do better though, give me a day or so ;)
Ahem. not much.
my tactic is to use the "mouse" plane to shoot the rain in the beginning to save the "keyboard" plane for the bosses.
sooo...a combined score of 10750.
1st on the high score board. Still had 9 lives left but went on a suicidal rampage due to the game becoming mind numbingly boring. :(
Nice site, Jay, and I like this game. In a world of copycats, it's relatively unique. Props.
The whole sequence of enemies repeat eventually, and without increasing the difficulty level. The power-ups are just as easy to come by, and therefore you can play the game indefinitely once you learn how to avoid them properly—except that there is no pause button and you'll have to take a break from it eventually. That's what happened to me.
I just played for over an hour and was in the groove with it. I went through all the bosses at least 7 or 8 times. My score was 91200 with 7 lives left. I set my coffee cup on the mouse button and took my bio break. When I came back the game was over, and when I took the cup off the mouse I lost my chance to enter the score to the high score list. =(
There's an hour of your life you'll never get back :D
this game is too slow for me
i played it through once, untill they started repeating, then i just closed it and whent and played timesplitters future perfect befor i fell asleep.
this would be a very good game if it sped up eventually, to a point where it actually required skill.
but i still like it dew to the fact that i love forward scrolling shooters!
jay if you could get the pc version of Raden 2 that would be awsome!!
i dominate at that game.
i would have bought it from eb games for all of 46 cents, but they where fresh out.
lol
is the one pictured in that screenshot at the top the last boss in the sequence? i can't seem to beat it.
This game is very similar to pop pirates.
http://www.protokid.com/games/game23.php
Is it by the same people?
Good observation, Shawn. Indeed it is. I should have indicated so in the Pop Pirates review. In fact, I just did. =)
This game is doubtless based on the daydreams that float through a person's head as they watch rain on their office window.
How many of us haven't pictured a game like this as we've watched raindrops run down a window? I know I often picture shooting them in a downward scrolling shooter, and lo and behold, someone actually made a game where that's the object!
I like a lot of the bosses too. It does become slightly repetitive after a while, and the lack of a pause button is bad, but I still like the concept of the game.
played it before and loved it, but right now the link is down - just so you know....
Sony apparently took the game down, but I just had an email exchange with Bloc Media, and they've just put the game up on their servers, so the links work again! \o/
Block Media ROCKS! :D
Love this shmup but it could really use a pause button. I finally wore out and lost. Jay, I think I beat your score... 140650.
The proof: http://www.mikedoro.com/images2/Junk/MindGamesScore.jpg
Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go put an icepack on my wrist. Carpal Tunnel... here I come!
BTW: It looks like they aren't supporting the "High Score" board. When I clicked to submit it, I got send back to the start menu without any acknowledgement.
Keyboard input doesn't seem to work :( Seems a nice game i'd love to play it without shredding my carpal on this laptop mousepad. Also can't enter my name at the end.
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