Neon Chrome

Neon Chrome is a twin-stick shooter set in a cyber-punk world. It has rogue-like mechanics so you have one life, but your cash is persistent between play-throughs. Once you complete a batch of levels, there's a boss. After which, you open a shortcut to the next set. Taking the shortcuts isn't advised because you need to find the upgrades and guns before reaching the harder levels.

You can spend your cash upgrading your Health, Damage, Luck, Energy which can be upgraded 100 times, and your Upgrade slots can be upgraded up to 10. A complaint I often have with this type of game is that they don't seem possible to complete without grinding up to a certain point, and obviously this system is very grindy. I felt like my character was much more powerful when I had something like 50% extra damage, 50% extra luck, 20% more health and some extra upgrade slots. When I did finally complete the game, the entire run was easy and then it makes you doubt how much of it is down to skill, and how much was down to your character's attributes.

The levels vary in size, so some can be quickly done within minutes. Some levels have prerequisites like to destroy 5 targets, and there's usually a few locked doors that require you to grab a key. This can be in a room, or defended by a stronger unit labelled a "key master".

The enemies with riot shields are really annoying but can be taken down with melee attack. Enemies often have a big advantage in thin, cluttered hallways; grenadiers, rocket launchers or accurate plasma rifles can tear you apart. I think the rocket launchers were a huge negative in this game. Sometimes I only realised they were there when I saw the explosion, and if they get a direct hit on you; it can often be instant death; which is infuriating in this type of game.

You start off with one gun, and a special attack. Weapons are: shotgun, assault rifle, SMG and plasma variations. Special attacks include: rockets, mines, grenades, pulse (stuns organic enemies), then later you unlock incendiary grenades.

Within the map, you can find find medical stations to restore part of your health, upgrade stations to choose a permanent upgrade. You will often find new weapons, or upgrade your currently held weapon. There's plenty of boxes to loot for cash. You can shoot down certain walls, and there's quite a few explosive barrels which can be tactically shot. There's not much variety in the environments; since you are just working your way through a large corporate tower.

The bosses put you up against a robot spider, robot centipede, then helicopter. After that it isn't very imaginative. The next boss is a stronger version of the spider or centipede, then you are up against 3 spiders. The final boss is also a spider and very anti-climactic. I found the first encounter with many of them to be very difficult, especially the centipede. Their shields regenerate far too quick and when you're in the second stage where they are churning out drones; it is hard to take care of the drones and deal enough damage to the centipede. When your character is stronger and you have an explosive secondary attack; then you can gun him down quickly. The rematch against the spider/centipede and the final boss were easy.

There's a lot of fun to be had with Neon Chrome, simply because I like gunning things down. It's also great fun destroying the walls, or causing loads of explosions. The bad thing is that the game is quite unbalanced and the focus is on the grind.