We are always proud and happy to see productions coming out on our beloved consoles in a local videogame panorama that still struggles to establish itself on the international scene. After the - right - dose of fame reserved for Ubisoft Milano and its Davide Soliani, director of the next one Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, this must be the celebrity time for Antab Studio and its GRIDD: Retroenhanced. And let's hope it's more than the canonical 15 minutes of Andy Warhol school.
Why GRIDD: Retroenhanced really deserves it. A fun and adrenaline-pumping shooter on rails, just landed on Xbox One and a love letter from the Milanese team to Years' 80, the Power Glove and Synthwave music, omnipresent companion of our raids in the mainframe.
An explosion of sounds and colors
Over the years we have always reproached a good part of independent productions: to have a limited desire to innovate from a visual and graphic point of view, to want to concentrate excessively on complex gameplay ideas (very valid in some cases, of course). There is nothing wrong with pixel art or 2D titles, but unfortunately to establish itself above all on platforms such as Steam (where GRIDD has already been available for some time) it is necessary to get noticed, to stand out from the crowd even in the technical sectors. And in this Antab's friends did a masterful job, touching both the strings of the nostalgia with this VHS style filter that surrounds our games, both the strings of technology enthusiasts, thanks to the fluidity and graphic impact that Retroenhanced still manages to give. We are sure that, seeing it at a fair, you would have stopped to try it. And, now on the Xbox One store, we advise you to stop and buy it.
The second key element of the experience is - as already mentioned - the soundtrack of GRIDD: Retroenhanced (composed by Dream Fiend, which you can find on Soundcloud), which works together with cyberpunk colors and lights to keep you attached to the chair. It is no coincidence that the default volume settings are really high; if you are not going to wake up the whole neighborhood, you will be forced to lower it for sure. Otherwise, if it is your desire to be hated by those downstairs, take your responsibility and leave it as it is.
Life as a hacker
In a playful state, GRIDD: Retroenhanced is a shooter on tracks in which we will play a hacker - represented by a sort of spacecraft - intent on penetrating the security of a mainframe, which will not fail to throw us against all sorts of defensive systems to stop us. There aren't many (or difficult) controls in GRIDD - you move with the left stick, shoot with the A button, that's all. But destroying the cyber defenses by dint of cybernetic bullets will not be a superficial or simple mission: avoiding any kind of beam, obstacle or laser is not an easy task; It will be necessary to manage not only the health of our ship, but also to collect the strongest bonuses and discover the attack patterns of the opponents, a necessary condition to overcome the pitfalls of the game.
GRIDD: Retroenhanced is definitely a time & score attack game, so it offers relative depth that makes up for the challenge that comes from wanting to climb the leaderboards and outrun other players (although we would have liked a few more stats and options, like friends on the leaderboards). The 80's work of Antab Studio offers first Arcade mode, the completion of which is required to unlock the Endless, the second and last of the title.
Hardcore, indeed
And get ready to sweat the seven proverbial shirts just to try it on, because getting to the end credits of Arcade, overcoming enemies, bosses and situations of increasing difficulty, is not an easy task and it will take you a good number of tries. Here, however, the goodness of the gameplay loop of the guys based in Crescenzago is highlighted, because in all these attempts that have also served us, we have never been disheartened and we have never blamed the game for our failures. Proof of this is the fact that in every single match we have improved our record, gradually reaching the goal. Remarkable.
If Arcade becomes predictable and its appeal is lost soon, Endless is certainly where you will spend the most time challenging the rest of the world, as it loses the scripted structure and becomes procedurally generated: every game will be different. As in an endless runner on the iPhone, in fact, we will have to try to survive as long as possible against the hordes of variegated enemies who will be thrown at us. If the level of challenge and tension grow further, here it loses its fun slightly: we see that the randomness factor nullifies the skilful work of refinement of the development team, sometimes creating confusion on the screen or frustration to combinations of attacks or threats apparently unsurpassed. However, this doesn't detract from the goodness of the game, only makes us dream of a new hypothetical GRIDD more focused on storytelling, with a system of levels similar to Star Fox. It wouldn't be bad, would it Antab?
As highlighted in our recent preview, we had little doubt that GRIDD would prove to be a great title even in its final console version (Xbox One exclusive at the moment). Fun and spectacular, it has perhaps the only real flaw of being a bit limited in terms of options and variety, almost denoting its origin as a mobile game. However, if we take into account the very palatable price of 11.99 €, GRIDD: Retroenhanced does not intend to replace The Witcher or Battlefield 1 as your main game or deep single player experience; however, it can be great for breaking the pace and perfect for quick games, perhaps waiting for the pasta to cook.
