ROGUE ECLIPSE
For: PC
From: Huskrafts
★★★

By BEN ALLAN

Did you know that in the week of August 24-30 this year, 720 new video games were released on Steam alone? In the midst of the absolute firehose of titles, it’s increasingly tough for any given indie games developer to pop up above the torrent, so let me direct a little bit of your attention to a worthy effort amidst all the churn that happens to have come across Game Time’s desk recently: Rogue Eclipse.

A first title and obvious labour of love from UK indie developer Huskrafts —  which seems to consist largely of a solo developer — it’s an arcade-style space shooter inspired by classic stuff like Starfox and Rogue Squadron which drops you into a classic “final pilot who is the last hope of the side against an overwhelming bad guy armada” scenario. This is basically all you need to start jetting through space and pulling your best Wedge Antilles moves as increasingly tricky waves of fighters, picket ships and heavily beweaponed cruisers try to turn you into a rapidly dissipating cloud of gases.

Unsurprisingly, Rogue Eclipse takes a rogue-like approach to the genre, so you can choose your fighter at the start of each run based on your value preference for factors like shield strength, speed or manoeuvrability and pick your preferred special weapon before heading out to see how far you can make it against the enemy Phiraun forces. Progress will open up shortcuts to later levels, but if you take these you will miss out on the ship upgrades that are the reward for passing each stage, so it can be a tougher ask.

Rogue Eclipse succeeds in replicating the feeling of what it would presumably be like to be a solo pilot against entire fleet — pretty darned intense. The game offers a good feeling of speed and swarms you in low-threat fighters (that are very satisfying to cannon out of the sky), but the real danger comes from the larger ships, which throw out anything from firework-like curtains of flak to clouds of missiles and rapid-fire cannon rounds. Much of the Rogue Eclipse experience, especially in later stages, is thus throwing your ship around desperately going “no-no-no-no-no-nooo!” hoping your shield/armour will survive the next three or seconds. 

In fact, there’s often so much heat coming in your direction and screen busyness it can be a little hard to tell what’s going to hit you, but you’ll quickly work out that attacking a formation of these ships head on is a one-way ticket to Explosion Town, so some more strategic flying is needed. On top of this larger capital ships have weapon hardpoints which must be picked off first and also seem to be pretty clever about turning in ways to make them harder to hit, so you’ve got your work cut out for you.

"Don't fly at high speed into rocks" is a tip which can be readily offered for this game. Image: Supplied

At the end of stages await boss battles which sometimes demand yet more precision aeronautics through physical environments, and if you end up as a smear on a space rock or internal superstructure wall it’s back to the beginning of a run you go, so there’s a bit to master here. The frustration of a run-ending collision is real, but you’ll know it was your own stupid fault and be determined to do better next time.

It all handles well (and is super controller friendly) and looks nice — love a good colourful space nebula —  and it’s very simple to pick up and get to blasting stuff. In addition the art style and voice acting take an Arab-futurism theme which we don’t get to see too much of in more mainstream games, and which makes a refreshing change from the “everyone in the space-going future is American” that is so often default.

Rogue Eclipse is one of countless little titles out there that isn’t reinventing the wheel or making a huge gaming world splash, but instead is just a pretty well made, fun basic time. It’s a great option for an uncomplicated lizard-brain blast of half an hour or so and comes without all of the problematic labour practices and executive malfunctions of the increasingly unsustainable triple-A gaming industry. Pull a few barrel rolls, support a small and passionate team and get some more indie into that gaming diet of yours.