Diskobolos’ Review – Cyberpunk Nostalgia In Your Palm

‘Diskobolos’ Review – Cyberpunk Nostalgia In Your Palm
Like any subculture, Indie gaming has it’s extremes.

Like any subculture, Indie gaming has it’s extremes. On one hand you have art-house post wave designed games that look like nothing else you’ve ever dared imagine, and in the opposite direction you find games that are so grounded in their own heritage that you can almost trace back the designers influences on sight. Conquering Bytes’ Diskobolos is the latter of the two.

Straight from the get go you’ll see some obvious call backs to some of the most beloved retro gaming mechanics. In Diskobolos players man a stationary turret that serves as your last line of defense against the hordes of ever replicating electric death. Right off the bat there is a scent of cyberpunk space invaders about Diskobolos, but that’s just the beginning. In order to combat the viral nasties that crawl down your screen en mass, you launch ricocheting discs from your battle station, very much like Break Out but without any ceiling to bounce off of. In that sense Diskobolos is an amazing marriage of both titles.

Now that my initial impression of the game is out of the way, lets cut to the heart of that matter.  Just how does Diskobolos stack up?

Diskobolos plays on a fixed top-down screen.  The enemies are constantly racing to the bottom of the screen and your job it to shoot off discs as effectively as possible. A carefully positioned disc can bounce off the walls at just the right angles and land that perfect combo. The longer that you survive wave upon wave of bugs, the more aggressive and versatile they become.  Later on, the game’s field of play begins to transform, making it much harder to line up your shots.

Each time you play is a chance to complete up to 3 of the games many missions. Clearing these missions unlocks perks that will change up the gameplay even more. For example, an early perk allows you to see a dotted line as you aim each shot, which drastically simplifies a lot of the guesswork with setting up some killer moves. Killing enemies fills up your item gauge that will grant you disc power ups.

The menu and layout is nothing short of simple. From the start screen you’ve got access to the game itself, Conquering Bytes’ social portal, a list of missions so that you can keep track of your accomplishments and your standard set of options and leader-boards. The in-game text features some pretty snappy quotes from across time and space.

The game’s graphics have quite a bit of contrast to them, featuring vibrant, colorful enemies speeding over a subdued and detailed background. The bugs steadily build themselves into life and then begin to squirm and crawl with the most fluid of animation. There is an array of laid back arcade effects that punctuate all the action with a classic arcade flair.

Diskobolos rocks a pretty catchy techno soundtrack with a lot of variety. The sound effects take a page directly from theclassic arcade era and feel right at home along side the rest of the digital disc launching title.

One of the games main focuses lies in it’s leader board, “The List.” But besides that there are 50 different missions for you to accomplish as you play through the main survival mode. While Diskobolos has a brisk learning curve, it isn’t enough to make new players feel like shying away from repeat games.

Diskobolos is a solid arcade title founded on nostalgia and packed with fast paced action and 4 different tools that add a layer of strategy to each play through, the game has enough to keep you occupied but could do with a few more modes. Besides playing survival and knocking out missions there isn’t much else to do. While there aren’t too many ways to change up the core game, the mainstay is a strong pillar to play around.

Diskobolos by Conquering Bytes is available on the App Store, launching at .99 cents. Keep up with the latest news and more from Conquering Bytes on their official website.

[review pros=”Strong retro style gameplay, Plenty of replayability, Fitting artistic style” cons=”Nothing to do outside of core game” score=”80″]