I’m going to prelude this review with saying that this has been postponed for months whilst I tried to see if the game would improve its stability on PS4 but alas, nothing has changed whatsoever.
Swimsanity is frankly the buggiest, most unstable game I have had the unfortunate task of playing on PlayStation 4. The longest I have been able to play the game without it giving me a blue screen error is 17 minutes. Usually it does it within 10. This is utterly unacceptable and despite reinstallations, moving between hard drives and rebuilding databases – I simply cannot get this game to work properly if at all.
It is a crying shame because during those few minutes of gameplay – there could be a decent game here!
Swimsanity is a 1-4 player underwater sidescrolling shooter. You take your diver, shoot enemies similarly to a twin stick shooter and battle giant enemies and boss fish! Every level can be played co-operatively in story mode and free play both online and locally and the more you play, the more weapons unlock for you to swap out your arsenal. These come in the form of new divers to choose from (colours are assigned to weapon types) so it rewards continued play. AI can take over slots too if you want to battle in a group but have no friends at the time to play with. Co-op runs throughout the game as once you build your special meter you can join forces – a bit like Power Rangers summoning the Megazord and combine your specials to really clear out the screen of enemies. These are powerful and fun and different combinations make for potent attacks.
Outside of this the game also offers a ton of party styled verses modes. Deathmatch, team deathmatch and battling waves of enemies in survival all have the potential to be great fun. There is also a capture the flag style game where players or teams have goals to bring an object back into. Your divers handle nicely and things for the few minutes I’ve been able to play seem to show potential as a local multiplayer brawler you’d enjoy playing.
All of this though is utterly pointless if the game cannot run. The crashes take place in every mode but seem to happen quicker if you add in AI opponents or play in multiplayer. I’ve actually played the game for about 5 hours but the game doesn’t even register a single hour of gameplay and as unlocks are tied to completed levels and objectives – I can’t even see the progress I feel like I should have made towards building up a larger collection of things to play with.
I hope the game is more stable on PC, Switch or Xbox One but at the time of writing, avoid this game. It should never have been released in this state. This is a finished gameplay game trapped in an alpha stability build. No.
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