Assault Android Cactus Reminds us of a Playful 'Forced'

By Published May 27, 2015 at 10:07 pm

Action/arcade twin-stick shooters are a tough market. They've been around for decades and have years of design refinement, and still, only a few stand strong. It feels like we're bombarded by dozens more arcade-y action games every year, and there's simply not enough space for them; games are no longer an infinite sum game – the market is arguably oversaturated.

I still like following the scene, though. We were recently told about Assault Android Cactus, a game that's releasing to PC and consoles in the summer, and hopes to reintroduce “Dreamcast-era” gameplay to the market. In watching the gameplay trailer, I'm reminded of – perhaps against the developer's intentions – a more playful, youth-targeted twin-stick shooter. The bright colors and silly dialogue mostly contribute to those, though looking beyond the graphics and into mechanics, we see what resembles a faster, brighter form of Forced.

The target price is $15 – a tough sell on Steam's overwhelmingly populous marketplace. We're believers that well-designed and marketed titles can rise, even if briefly, on digital distribution platforms, but the price has to be right.

Learn more over here.

Steve Burke

Steve started GamersNexus back when it was just a cool name, and now it's grown into an expansive website with an overwhelming amount of features. He recalls his first difficult decision with GN's direction: "I didn't know whether or not I wanted 'Gamers' to have a possessive apostrophe -- I mean, grammatically it should, but I didn't like it in the name. It was ugly. I also had people who were typing apostrophes into the address bar - sigh. It made sense to just leave it as 'Gamers.'"

First world problems, Steve. First world problems.

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