So I Tried... Really Big Sky

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never tried before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full half hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. This time I went for the PC version of Really Big Sky.

What I thought it was

A bright bullet hell twin-stick shooter set in space. I think the last side-scrolling shooter I sat down and played was R-Type Delta on the PlayStation, which was a lot of fun. However, the faster paced ‘bullet hell’ type of shooter never appealed to me. I’m not one for tough challenges when I could be playing a well written, and slow, story-based game. Dodging around the place isn’t my kind of thing.

What it actually is

A brightly coloured twin-stick shooter, that isn’t so much of a bullet hell as I was expecting. There’s a British narrator who keeps telling you to go and twat them, so that was definitely unexpected. There are also planets in space, which Really Big Sky points out and makes you fly through. Why go around a planet when your ship can flip around and drill through the crust, mantle and core - then out the other side? There are plenty of enemies in between obstacles such as planets and asteroids, and the occasional nebula, which all vary in attack strategy and shield strengths. As you murder your way across the galaxy, you gain stars from your kills which are used to upgrade your spaceship with things such as a faster firing rate or a shield.

Will I keep playing

If I was interested in getting every achievement or unlocking every upgrade, I’d play it for a few more hours. But I’m not, so I won’t. Really Big Sky hasn’t made this a genre I’m keen to remain in. It’s fun for half an hour, but each playthrough only lasts as long as you can avoid enough bullets or random objects. With the upgrade system, it does have a ‘one more go’ feel to it, but now I’ve turned it off to write this I have no inclination to restart it.