Rick Henderson Review | TheXboxHub

It could possibly be a sort of persona take a look at. If I instructed you a recreation was known as ‘Rick Henderson’, what sort of recreation do you assume it will be? I’m going for an action-platformer, which might be me displaying my age and channelling Rick Harmful. Maybe it brings to thoughts an arty strolling simulator, or a point-and-click. 

Approach down on the backside of that record can be a hardcore area shoot ’em up. Nobody goes to name their R-Sort-killer ‘Rick Henderson’. Are they?

Nicely, stone the crows, Rick Henderson is definitely an area shooter. An excellent area shooter, at that. The dissonance shouldn’t hassle us, nevertheless it does.

Rick Henderson is a forty-three 12 months outdated, obese area pilot on the helm of a spaceship, going through off towards fleets of enemies earlier than an end-of-level boss. Rick isn’t fascinated by issues like story or cutscenes: he’s all concerning the pure, arcade taking pictures and the rating chase. It’s as pure a online game as you could possibly count on. 

Leap into Rick Henderson (nonetheless doesn’t sound correct), and your first selection is recreation mode. There’s a Commonplace Limitless Mode, which thrusts you right into a collection of recreation ‘loops’ (simply the sport’s marketing campaign, performed time and again), a Arduous Limitless Mode, and a Boss Raid Mode. It’s a skinny providing in shoot ’em up phrases, particularly as Rick Henderson is dishonest: the Arduous Limitless Mode is extra a problem setting, and the Boss Raid Mode is only a copy-paste of all of the bosses within the recreation. We’d say that there’s a mode-and-a-half right here. 

Then you definately’re selecting your pilot as a result of – shock horror – it isn’t really the Rick Henderson present. You can too select Ben X9 (which we assume is a Ben 10 joke), who’s an alien vampire, and Thoraxx, who’s the spit of Bebop from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This selection is extra vital than you would possibly count on. Not solely are there base variations to statistics like velocity and the variety of life factors, however the completely different characters have specials if you press Y on the pad. Rick has a frankly horrible decoy, whereas Bebop will get a helpful screen-wipe within the type of artillery. Ben X9 will get the power to teleport forwards, which is alright, we suppose. 

Then you definately’re into the sport’s loop, and Rick Henderson’s high quality shines by way of. It’s, within the fundamental stuff of its taking pictures, actually slightly good. The ship strikes lithely, the collision detection is actual and the bullets have an effect and heft that makes you’re feeling highly effective. The foundational stuff is on level. 

Transfer into the weapons and issues are even higher. You have got three core weapons at hand, fired with X, A and B. X is your conventional bullets: the all-rounder that fires in a straight line and offers the identical injury to all unit sorts. A is your vitality weapon, which offers injury to shields, and fires randomly such as you have been pissing bubbles. B is an artillery weapon, and it carves into armoured, slightly than shielded, enemies, which is especially true of bosses. 

What this implies is that you just’re continuously switching between weapons relying on the enemies which have been spat out. Matching the weapon to the enemy is enjoyable sufficient, and retains you in your toes. However the true magic comes from the weapon power-ups. Every of those three weapons will be swapped out with 9 various weapons, totalling twenty-seven. These might have been formulaic and, to be honest, just a few are. However so a lot of them are imaginative and positively beckon you to check them out. 

Our favorite was the Randomiser, which is sort of a pinball multiball in shoot ’em up type. Bullets randomly bounce across the display screen, and you’ll hearth off so many that you just’re given a sort of bullet armour. A sniper-like weapon creates a reticule that can be utilized to one-shot enemies. Chain weapons, channeled lasers and ricochet bullets all make an look. It’s an overstuffed arsenal, and it’s fabulous. 

Ranges are comparatively easy, in shoot ‘em up phrases, with waves of mobs coming and going in numerous permutations and patterns. However Rick Henderson has a mild randomisation algorithm which implies that waves seem barely in a different way on every playthrough. Bosses have a number of phases, however name on them randomly too. It implies that you’re in your toes: you possibly can’t memorise ranges within the method that you just would possibly with different video games. If something, we’d have preferred extra of it: Rick Henderson begs to be replayed, however the sequence of bosses by no means adjustments. We’d have taken some boss- or level-variance. 

The bosses are a tad nameless – nearly completely spaceships with simplistic silhouettes – however they’re enjoyable to combat, and so they’re telegraphed extraordinarily effectively. You may quickly study to grasp them if in case you have the endurance and skill. 

But it surely’s what occurs after they’re downed that we love. They explode in a bathe of shields (progressing your rank, and subsequently your factors and achievements) and gems, however in addition they supply considered one of 4 completely different perks. You would possibly go for smaller advantages with no downsides, or larger advantages with plentiful downsides. We beloved creating builds that emphasised rating, at the price of issues like well being and defences. We have been a rating machine made out of polystyrene.

There’s little or no else to complicate issues. As talked about, Rick Henderson isn’t one for story, so that you don’t get something to chew on by way of cutscenes or endings. We’d have taken some narrative color, however we didn’t notably miss it when it wasn’t there. A ‘graze’ counter accumulates if you narrowly miss a bullet, and it may be spent on good bombs that obliterate your opponents. 

What all of this quantities to is an especially succesful shooter with a cargo-full of concepts. We is probably not on board with that title, however all the things else is supremely stable, from the arsenal of weapons to the end-of-level perk system. We had a gormless grin on our faces as we performed it, and you’ll’t ask for greater than that.

Rick Henderson is somewhat slice of arcade-shooting goodness, and typically that’s greater than sufficient.

You should buy Rick Henderson from the Xbox Retailer