Thus, the game relies less on the ability to wield the weapons properly, but more on how to wield them effectively in the time that they are alloted to you. In either case, the goal is not to cherish the weapons you discover, but to constantly swap them out in order to capture the elusive crates, increasing one's score. Perhaps it's the ease with which one can eliminate all of the enemies on the screen that provides a sense of attraction, or perhaps it is the allure of setting up the perfect shot and waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. As one plays through this game, it might be easy to become attached to a certain weapon. If not, doing so only becomes harder as they later respawn at the top of the screen, moving twice as quickly as before since "fire makes enemies angry".Īnalysis: What Super Crate Box provides for us is an interesting dichotemy in terms of what one wants to do in a shoot-em-up game, and the clash it provides against the actual goal of the game.
So while enemies (big, small, and floating) scamper down the screen in lemming-like paths, you've got to dodge their movements and blast them off the screen as efficiently as possible before they fall into a fire pit. Your score is not determined by how long you can stay alive or by how many enemies you can kill, but rather, by how many crates you pick up. However, the trick to this game does not lie in the weapons themselves, but in the random crates. You start out with a single pistol,but you might pick up a powerful revolver, a slow-loading bazooka, or a so-much-recoil-you're-pinned-to-the-wall minigun. Each crate contains a different gun, and picking up a crate automatically switches your weapon to whatever you pick up. Use the keys to move, to jump, and to shoot. The object of Super Crate Box is to jump, shoot, and scramble your way across the level to reach randomly-placed crates.
Sure they might have some other purpose, but what fun are they without these essential little elements? Fortunately, Super Crate Box from indie developer Vlambeer is a free retro-styled platform shooter that has more guns than you can shake a stick at in the time it takes to play.
A shoot-em-up game without guns is like a library without books, or an office chair without wheels.