Nowadays, twin stick shoot-em-ups are a dime a dozen and it takes something special to stand out amongst the crowd. Bleed is a title that is by no means awful, but is nothing spectacular either. You’ll play as Wryn, our purple haired hero, on her quest to be the greatest video game hero ever. She aims to take down the current reigning champs who have gone rouge and turned evil.

In this brief 7 level adventure you’ll face a number of enemies, which are mostly static or flying creatures who will shoot at you relentlessly. This would result in instant death if not for Wryn’s ability to slow time, similar to Max Payne’s bullet time system. This ability is limited but refills after a few seconds, allowing it to be used frequently. In addition to the ability to slow time, you are given a triple jump and the ability to float or glide at will, simply by pushing the stick in whatever direction you wish. While these abilities are easy to use, I found the control scheme to be hard to master, as the triggers are used for both jumping and altering time.

While the game is fair, it is punishingly difficult at the higher settings, almost as if some steps were skipped between the normal and hard difficulties. I found myself bored on the normal setting and frustrated on the hard setting. Death does not carry as steep of a penalty as similar games of this genre, as you can easily load the same level from the main menu and continue from the beginning of the stage.

While the level design and score/sfx are well done, again, they are nothing out of the ordinary or worth telling your friends about. Most of the levels are carbon copied backgrounds from other genres and scroll along with the character. The art style similar to Dan Paladin’s from the Behemoth titles did offer a nice contrast between the often cutesy enemies and spattering of blood at their demise. I did find the bosses to be well designed; however, their patterns are easily recognizable, and like the standard enemies, are avoided and taken down with little effort.

You will find the arsenal featured to be apt to taking down the enemies, as there are a vast number of guns at your disposal. Each weapon offers infinite ammo which allows you to keep shooting with no worries of running out or struggling during the boss encounter.

By completing levels and vanquishing hostiles, you’ll earn credits that can be redeemed between levels to upgrade Wryn. These upgrades over time will make the game much easier if you are struggling. The upgrades come at a steady pace and do not require much grinding.

With multiple difficulties and additional protagonists to be unlocked, there are some replay options available. The new characters offer abilities that change the gameplay, but these were not enough to make me want to jump back into the world of Bleed after completing the fairly short story, which can be completed in about an hour.

You are able to play the game in co-op, but it is much more cumbersome than it should be. The camera will follow player one and it is extremely easy to lose the player two. My wife and I were not able to complete a single level in this manner, as I was either backtracking to find her, or she’d die due to being left behind. We found it much more enjoyable to play on our separate consoles.

With so many twin stick shooters being available on the market, you could do worse than investing time in Bleed, but you could also do a lot better. If you have a few dollars to spare and want a few hours of enjoyment, you’ll find it in Bleed.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Some Fun Mechanics
• Multiple Difficulties
• Unlockable Extras

Cons

• Short
• Awkward Control Scheme
• Uninspired Level and Enemy Design
• Horrible Co-op

Bleed was developed by Bootdisk Revolution, ported by Nephilim Game Studios, and published by Digerati Distribution & Marketing. It was released on PC July 3rd, 2013, August 22nd, 2017 on PS4 and August 23rd, 2017 for X1. The game can be purchased for $9.99 on consoles, and $4.99 on PC. The game was provided to us for review on Xbox One. If you’d like to see more of Bleed, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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