Eldritch horrors or advanced electrical sciences? Why not a bit of both? In a bid to stop Nicolas Tesla, H.P. Lovecraft begins to unleash the unspeakable horrors to destroy a machine that could lead to catastrophic events if it is not turned off. Basically saying "no", Tesla will unleash the full might of science and maybe some spectral magic in order to take down Lovecraft. Seriously, what could go wrong?
10Tons are really good at what they do. Having already sat down to one of their previous entries Crimsonland with my friend, and now fellow reviewer, Louis, we once again took up controllers for some twin-stick coop action against the hordes of unspeakable horrors.
Tesla vs Lovecraft from the outset felt solid in its mechanics but a little light on its features. This lasts just about as long as it takes for you to make it through the tutorial stages. Once those are done both your Nicholas Tesla and everyone else that joins (up to four players total) will all get the chance to unleash hell on the hordes coming your way.
Each stage through the various difficulties are represented by a pin on the city map of that particular plane that represents the difficulty. Each have their own colour schemes both for the map and for the stages within. Once you've jumped into the stage this is where everything starts and hopefully ends on a good note for you and your cohorts.
For the stages themselves, there are multiple different styles that can appear such as a downtown city core, the inside of a mountain, a graveyard and variations of all of the above. Each one of these have passageways and specifically designed "killboxes" for both you to use and for you to trap yourself in if you're not careful. Massive amounts of firepower is one thing, knowing when to run away is another.
Moving Tesla around each stage is easy. You move with the left stick, you aim with the right stick and then you fire your weapon with the right trigger. This is fairly standard for a top down shooter because I mean come on, it works. From there however Tesla has the ability to teleport through obstacles like fences or specific holes in walls in order to get to safety or to lay down a trap for everything coming his way. Adding in some extra powers that have certain amount of usages, he's almost fully equipped.
Each stage starts off with Tesla being level 1 and having only a simple pistol in order to combat the hordes charging towards him. As the stage and the overall game progress more weapons become unlocked in order to use. Standard weaponry, Tesla's electrical inventions and gauss will all make an appearance in multiple forms so finding what you like won't be hard, finding it on the map sometimes can be if it's not in the weapon spawn order.
Like the weapon selection, Perks are available either by picking them up on the ground as a reward for taking out a fair amount of enemies or by leveling up. Each level up grants the choice of two perks and as things continue other features such as re-shuffling them or gaining the choice of a random Epic perk (seriously game breaking in the best way possible).
All of these features come together for a seriously well designed package but it still has its flaws. Each stage has a meter that demonstrates how far along you are and how many enemies are currently there with you. The issues lie in the fact that the meter isn't always a good representation of how far along you are because sometimes it'll drop like a rock while other times it'll stay at zero for two whole minutes while the enemies keep spawning out of portals making you wonder exactly how much longer you can hold out.
Before wrapping up, there is one feature that I really want to highlight. Back again, because I remember it from Crimsonland, is that as players get further away from one another the screen zooms out in order to show everyone where they are. Players are never blocked from moving somewhere else because they are too far from one another. Does it get crazy because you can barely see where you are? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
Tesla vs Lovecraft is amazingly designed and holds hours worth of twin-stick enjoyment. With three well scaled difficulties, a crazy hard survival mode that will truly put your skills and luck (for perks and weapons) to the test, the only thing I wish I could have had more of was some cinematic because they were awesome.
Game Information
PC
Developer(s):
10tons Ltd
Publisher(s):
10tons Ltd
Genre(s):
Top Down Shooter
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
NA
Source:
Provided by Publisher
Article by Pierre-Yves
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