A.R.E.S.

I don't really know what the story of A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda is. I'm actually not even sure what the main character's name is. I'll just assume he's a guy named Ares because that's what the game is called. I mean I could have watched the opening cutscene, but it was like...still images with a cheap Ken Burns effect, and captions instead of voice acting. No thanks.

So Ares is either a robot or a guy in a robot suit. Or a girl in a robot suit, since you never know. Speaking of girls in robot suits, this game takes a lot of cues from Metroid. I'm running around through an open environment shooting enemies, exploring for secret areas, trying to upgrade my robot suit with new weapons and abilities...it's a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania gameplay style based on a sci-fi setting with a hero who wears a robot suit and...basically what I'm saying here is that it reminds me of Metroid. In fairness, Metroid is certainly a great series.

Anyway there's running and shooting and platforming and boss fights and crafting and RPG elements and all in all, it's not too bad.

The beef I have to start right off is that I don't like the physics. Ares is really heavy. She falls too fast. It makes the platforming more frustrating than it should be. Also, I like that you can use the second analog stick to shoot in whatever direction you aim it, but it's annoying that doing so makes it impossible to shoot and jump at the same time. If I try to aim with the left analog stick, I end up running back and forth when I want to shoot diagonally, which is not what I want to do.

In my first hour, I got through the first two levels, although I was admittedly playing very sluggishly. Overall, I think I'm feeling good about the value I got on this title. Seems like a decent game.