X-Out: Resurfaced

Despite being a huge fan of both American and Japanese shooters from the 1980s, I have extremely limited experience with the European shoot ‘em ups that populated computers like the Commadore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. Not that I was discriminating or anything, but I just didn’t have a lot of exposure to those machines. That’s why I was so excited to play X-Out: Resurfaced, a brand-new remake of a 1989 Amiga game by Rainbow Arts. While light on story and a little slower than the shooters I’m used to, I was eager to play through a game I missed out on as a kid. Was it worth the 36-year wait? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review X-Out: Resurfaced by ININ Games.

Right off the bat, you can tell that this isn’t going to be your typical shoot ‘em up. Instead of flying a one-of-a-kind experimental craft like in most shooters of that era, we actually have a choice of ships. We can either buy one of three already assembled ships, or you can go in and equip the craft with different bullets, missiles, rotating satellites and more. This is a unique way to start the game, and also something that we’re definitely going to come back to later.

Once you’re in the game, it won’t take long for your shoot ‘em up instincts to take over. This is certainly a shooter inspired by what was popular at the time, especially R-Type and Gradius. You control a large ship through alien-filled worlds that will take you underwater, into the crystal mines and, course, through lava filled caverns. While the eight stages aren’t especially long, they are packed with enemies and environmental hazards. There’s a nice mix of ships flying at you from all sides, along with stationary gunners shooting at you from both the ground and the ceiling. One type of enemy that the game likes to throw at you is a large ship that creates walls we’ll need to shoot at and destroy. This is especially effective because it limits where we can go and makes an already narrow cavern that much more claustrophobic.

On top of the hordes of enemies, each level will also have you battling two different bosses. This is another great example of how the European art design differs from what we were getting from Japan. While some of the bosses are boring, there are a few that absolutely steal the show. The first one you encounter a skeleton surrounding a giant glob of meat. It has a blood-soaked head that flies around and tries to trap our hero. The whole thing is gross and horrifying in all the best ways.

Unfortunately, the first thing I noticed wasn’t the grotesque monsters, but rather the game’s unflinching difficulty. Even as a longtime veteran of the shoot ‘em up wars, I was surprised that it took so long for me to get my groove with the speed and gameplay of X-Out. A lot of this has to do with your large ship and the collision box, which is a lot bigger than you might expect. This is one of those games where it’s extremely easy to blow up your ship just by accidentally hitting part of the level, and with only one life and no continues, you’re going to be playing through the first couple stages a lot.

But here’s the weird thing: X-Out ends up shifting from being too tough to being entirely too easy so quickly that it will give you whiplash. Those first couple stages are difficulty because you’re too busy building up your ship’s arsenal to buy new ships. However, it won’t take long before you will be able to afford buying multiple ships, which end up acting as extra lives. These ships can be more powerful and better equipped, making each stage a lot easier to contend with. And because we’re given so many credits at the end of each level, you’ll be able to stock up, allowing the player to take more chances without worrying about seeing the dreaded “Game Over” screen.

Being able to buy extra ships and customize them is really the one truly unique thing about this game. There are four different ships to choose from, each allowing you to add more weapons and auxiliary satellites. You can change both your primary and secondary attack, as well as what type of missiles will be fired automatically. There are also different special attacks to buy and even a couple of upgrades, which will make your craft virtually unstoppable. With nine slots for different ships, you’ll end up spending a lot of time fiddling around with your fleet.

If you still find yourself failing, even with the addition of extra ships, then the game will pop up a screen asking if you want to unlock a cheat. I love how this is presented as a cheat crack that you might run with the game, like you would have to do back in the day when this was on computers. That said, I wish that all of the cheats would unlock the moment you beat the game, because dying over and over just to unlock the few you apparently didn’t need doesn’t sound like a fun way to spend an afternoon. Still, this is a fun idea, even if the execution could use some tweaking.

One fun extra the game comes with is a mirror mode, which flips everything around, adding an extra bit of challenge. With pretty much every horizontal shoot ‘em up going from left to right, it’s surprisingly disorienting to turn things around. This used to be a mainstay of classic racing games, and I’m surprised we didn’t see this type of thing in more shooters of that era. On the other hand, once you’ve beaten the game backwards, I’m not sure how often you’ll want to revisit the mirror mode.

And that’s my complaint about X-Out in general. While the eight levels are fun to fight through, it won’t take you long to beat and there isn’t much here to keep you coming back. Games like Thunder Force III and Gaiares were replayable because they were fast, fun and exciting. Between the action-packed levels and memorable bosses, it felt like you went on a roller coaster ride. X-Out is more like standing on a moving sidewalk. It’s considerably slower and nowhere near as exciting. It may be fast compared to the other shooters on the Amiga, but it just can’t compete with what was coming out of Japan at that time. If you grew up loving this game, then this will be $20 well-spent. Everybody else may want to wait for a sale before diving into X-Out: Resurfaced.