GUNHEAD Review

GUNHEAD is an interesting new roguelike FPS, taking place across a multitude of abandoned spaceships full of traps, creatures, and pirates. Developed by Alientrap and as a sequel to their previous title, Cryptark, GUNHEAD changes up the formula from a 2D action-strategy game to a fully-realised 3D space-faring shooter.

GUNHEAD has a very basic but deeply interesting gameplay loop. Each run begins with you picking a mech, with only one to begin with, but unlocking more as you progress, which all have different stats and starting loadouts. While in your ship, you also have the option to purchase weapons, which adds them to your inventory and also unlocks new ones to be found in future runs. You are able to use up to four different weapons at once along with a single ability; however, you can stockpile an unlimited (I think) amount of different weapons in your inventory, which can be switched on the fly. The movement is floaty but very responsive, which feels incredible. It’s very freeform, allowing you to really take advantage of the full 360 degrees of space, which many games seem to lack. Different weapons all feel like they fill different roles, yet some felt blatantly overpowered, while others felt underpowered. Balancing does seem to be incredibly mixed, which definitely killed a lot of variety in loadouts, along with some utility abilities, such as the teleporters, which were, for the most part, very underwhelming compared to some of their counterparts (who would take a teleporter over a nuke?). Sadly, though, many of the enemies felt very basic, and the 360 degrees of motion allowed for enemies to easily sneak up on you during more hectic sections, which occasionally led to some very cheap-feeling deaths.

The story and characters are a little lacklustre, feeling very basic, but it works well enough. You play as a space mercenary hired to destroy abandoned ships and take down other wanted targets for a seemingly shady organisation. To the game's credit, it never broke the immersion, and it works well as a setup for the world and the events you will take part in, yet I can’t say I was ever genuinely interested in what was going on in the world. Despite this, it has a lot of style, with highly unique and interesting visuals and music.

The level design is really where GUNHEAD shines, with ships getting procedurally bigger and many of their systems getting far more complex, leading to some interesting strategies. Each level is a randomly generated ship with a multitude of systems, along with a brain/boss, which needs to be destroyed to progress. Each of the ship’s systems, however, come intertwined with their own abilities, such as the alarm systems, which, when triggered, alert enemies to your location, or the nuke system, which must be destroyed first; otherwise, other systems let out a giant nuclear blast upon destruction. Shield systems also entirely defend others until destroyed, which leads to very interesting and unique pathfinding to get through the ships as efficiently and safely as you can while collecting as much loot as possible. The ship's loot mainly consists of new weapons, abilities, and power-ups, such as increased damage, health, and many more.

The other big issue I had during GUNHEAD was the game's meta-progression systems. During runs, you’ll earn money through various means, such as beating levels and completing challenges. This money can then be spent on unlocking new mechs, weapons, and abilities. By no means was this bad outright, but it was a little boring. The variety in unlocks and player progression was somewhat lacking, and I never felt like I was actively getting any stronger, which is a big selling point for me in roguelike titles such as Hades.

GUNHEAD’s core gameplay is an absolute blast, adding an interesting level of strategy often unseen in this genre, yet some of its roguelike and progression mechanics feel a touch lacking, which lets down a potentially incredible game.