So I have played a lot of ‘bullet heaven’, ‘horde shooters’, call them what you will. I used to be a big shoot ‘em-kid, transfixed by the pretty patterns of the bullet hell genre but great content there is sadly lacking these days. Plus the old reflexes are not what they once were. As time has gone on I have found myself drawn into this new subgenre of the blaster. If you have no idea what I am talking about, think Vampire Survivors. It’s that kind of thing.
But with Vampire Survivors‘ success came the clones, Man, did the clones come, the vast, vast majority of which offered nothing new. I enjoyed slight twists the on theme such as Deep Rock Galactic Survivor and Halls of Torment but even then, found myself going back to VS, with its polish and tons of extra content.
Step forward Nimrods – GunCraft Survivor from Fiveamp, a small indie studio looking to take the genre and push it forward rather than pull off a cheap clone trick.
Nimrods came out in Early Access yesterday and if you are not paying attention you can easily dismiss it as another clone, but to do so would be a grave mistake, even at this early stage.
Unlike other games where you are solely in control of your character who will auto-fire the ever-increasing barrage of weapons as you level them up, Nimrods is more interested in you leveling up the weapon itself which is a nice twist. Also, if you want a little more control over the shooting you can grab hold of your right stick too and you will get a reticle and turn the game into a Robotron-esque twin-stick shooter.
But Nimrods is more than these little variations on a theme. It seems, to me at least to borrow ideas from Deep Rock Galactic Survivor as well as the obvious, but the mechanics that seem to be borrowed are all best bits from other games, and here they are all packaged into one. The greatness here is the sum of all its parts.
Also, for some reason, at the start, the game even reminded me a bit of one of my favorite old arcade games, Ikari Warriors. Maybe it is something about the look and the pixels or the scenery. I might be losing my mind.
Another interesting aspect I have not put enough time into yet is that when you die, your build doesn’t die with you like it does in all these other games. Even in Vampire Survivors it takes a modicum of luck to get the drops you want and need and then when the game is done, you may never get them exactly the same again.
Nimrods eradicates that problem as the guns you craft can be accessed in the game’s spaceship hub and handed off to the little drone that will fight by your side. It’s a nice feature.
Okay, so we are in Early Access here but I am keen to follow along to where this goes. The idea of making insane weapons to fend off the relentless swarm of enemies is one that appeals to me and I’m hoping Fiveamp can continue to add enticing content to Nimrods to keep it fresher than the competition. Because before long, if people start to notice NImrods, one thing is for sure, somebody is going to copy it.