Capsized Review

Capsized is owned by Alientrap games

A good part of my childhood was spent playing flash games, both bad and good. Most of my early video game experience comes from them. I haven't played a flash game in years but I was very surprised to find out that I paid money for the equivalent of one.

Capsized was created by Alientrap games and is currently being sold on Steam. An Xbox release is in the works. Capsized originally caught my attention due to a Steam sale a while back. The games trailer boasted an exploration heavy game with intense combat and beautiful hand drawn graphics. Being a complete sucker for awesome platforming I immediately purchased it. Needless to say I was not impressed.

The main problem with Capsized is the controls. The game doesn't necessarily control badly; it is just that nothing feels right. Moving, jumping and grappling all feel imprecise and floaty. Jumping is too slow to give any tension to the situation and grappling just never functions how it should. The game is not exploration based but mission based, which wouldn't be a crime if the missions weren't so dull. The game does little to engage in the plot, which is mostly told through out of gameplay still images.

Another major problem is the combat, which also suffers from a drastic case of imprecision. Shooting a volley of bullets felt great until I realized only about half of my shots hit, and did little to defer my target. Bigger weapon suffer a different problem, none of them feel satisfying to shoot or do major damage. This combination makes combat frustrating and unrewarding.

The world in general is lifeless. This is a huge problem for a game that focuses on exploring an alien planet. The local wildlife all just seemed just out to get me. Monsters wait offscreen until I get close enough to charge. Others will explode out of nowhere for the single purpose of killing me. The single strategy the evil aliens seem to know is charging forward and shooting, with no respect to any obstacle that might stand in their way, like walls. It leads to a game world that feels specifically designed to kill the player, which is something that shouldn't fly in today's gaming.

The one compliment that I will give Capsized is that the game does look nice. The hand drawn aspect really shines through and makes a very pretty game. Everything else is crap though. Wouldn't recommend.