Late Shift (Xbox One, 2017)

Late Shift
Developed by Wales Interactive Ltd
Released for Xbox One (11/2017)
Also on Mac/PC/PS4/Switch

 

Late Shift is an entry into the often forgotten full-motion video (FMV) genre, meaning the entire game is comprised of real footage with live actors. Gameplay is comprised of making key decisions for your character throughout, each affecting the outcome in different ways. While I'm sure there are still FMV games being produced at least to some extent, it's rare to see one released on a home console.

The story involves your character, Matt, who works the late shift in a parking garage. While on the job he gets dragged into a robbery attempt to steal a precious Chinese rice bowl. I'm not going to go into any spoilers here, but things escalate in a hurry and the story wraps up in roughly an hour, depending on which decisions you've made along the way. There are a total of seven different endings to see, so there's some decent replay value. The actors all do a great job and the dialogue is well-written. There are a few things here and there that require some suspension of disbelief, but isn't that the case with the majority of movies? Overall Late Shift does a good job keeping the player engaged in the story and is somewhat reminiscent of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books with its branching storylines.

Modern technology allows Late Shift to look and play vastly superior to the FMV games of the old days. Back in the day when the FMV genre was first realized and most popular, the only media format that had the capacity to store the data were compact and laser discs. After entering your input there would always be a delay as the game accessed the disc to load the result. This has mostly been eliminated in Late Shift, though there were spots where I could tell it was loading the next screen but even then those moments were extremely brief. For the most part the scene transitions are seamless. The video quality in Late Shift looks great and I felt like I could have been watching a major motion picture release on Blu-Ray.

While Late Shift is a rather brief experience, the multiple endings and different outcomes available help add some replayability. If you enjoy FMV games in general this one's easy to recommend. Many gamers likely won't care to play a game that mostly consists of watching, but if an interactive cinematic experience involving a heist gone wrong sounds interesting to you then Late Shift is worth a look.

Final Verdict: Late Shift is a short but enjoyable attempt to make in interactive movie. Different outcomes and multiple endings help add some replayability.

Related Links:
Late Shift - GameFAQs
Late Shift for Xbox One- Microsoft Store
Late Shift for PC - Steam
CtrlMovie - Official Site 
Wales Interactive - Official Site
Late Shift Achievement Guide - Xbox Achievements
Late Shift - True Achievements

Chronoblast (XBLIG, 2013)

Chronoblast
Developed by n0rtygames
Released for XBLIG (2/2013)

Chronoblast is a vertical shmup, meaning you view the action from a top-down perspective shooting everything coming at you while flying forward continuously. The game boasts that it's the first on XBLIG to support tate, meaning if you have a vertically-oriented monitor you can tilt the image on its side to take up the whole screen. On a normal horizontal monitor the screen will be heavily cropped on both sides, so having the option to tilt the image is very nice and is a feature often overlooked by developers. The game also included networked high scores which was another nice bonus. Chronoblast definitely takes a lot of inspiration from classic Cave arcade titles in pretty much every aspect of the game. You can really tell the developers love their shooters and they've done an admirable job capturing the Cave-style shmup.

There are four characters to choose from, each sporting a different ship, pilot and shot pattern. While selecting between your pilot (all females), you have the option to select between three different skill levels: autobomb, normal and hell. Autobomb will provide a safety cushion and will automatically use a bomb rather than kill you upon taking a hit.  Normal mode is exactly as it sounds and hell mode is for those who want a real challenge. In a nice little touch, the easier the difficulty the more attire you'll see her wearing in her profile pic. The ship you pilot will have two modes of fire: laser and shot. The ship's speed decreases a bit in laser mode to help with precision dodging. You're also equipped with bombs and can build up a super-meter to unleash a temporary power boost to your attacks. Your ship is represented by a large sprite, but the little circle in the center of it is your hitbox, making it manageable but far from easy to dodge the onslaught of projectiles the enemies will send your way. Enemies will also drop score coins as you mow them down and instinctively you will want to collect as many as possible.

Chronoblast offers ranked, unranked and practice modes at the main menu. In ranked mode you'll try to rack up the highest score possible on a single credit. High scores are saved locally and there's a table for each difficulty. Unranked mode allows you to continue while practice mode lets you select a particular stage or boss to play. The game allows up to two-players to play simultaneously and having a buddy always adds to the fun. There are five levels, each with a mid and final boss. Each level is well-paced and enemies are diverse enough to have you constantly alternating between laser and shot modes. For those who can master the game and clear it on a single credit there's a true final boss you'll encounter at the end. Chronoblast is very similar to many of Cave's offerings and in my opinion that's a good thing; you can never have enough quality shmups, especially when it comes to XBLIG. It's really a shame that Chronoblast apparently hasn't been released for anything outside of XBLIG, though I've seen some links that talk about a PC version of the game but never found a legit download link for the game so I'm not sure on this.

Final Verdict: As far as XBLIG shmups go, Chronoblast is a superb effort and has everything you could want from this style of game, especially if you love Cave shooters!

Related Links:
Chronoblast - GameFAQs
n0rtygames - Official Site