Laserlife Review

Laserlife Review Screenshot 1

Laserlife, a new music-and-rhythm spectacle from the creators of Bit. Trip. The game was pitched as “an interactive biography about a dead astronaut floating through deep space who is discovered by future intelligences who have no concept of humankind.”

The game has a fairly interesting plot, which was unexpected considering at first glance it’s a rhythm-based shooter. The game starts with an alien spaceship that is heading towards what looks like a star. It turns out to be a floating rock containing a long-dead astronaut. You play as one of these “future intelligences”, you have the technology that is able to extract the physical elements of memories on your journey. During the game you will acquire points and objects that will help you unravel the mystery and try to find out who the astronaut is.

To collect these memories, you take control of two beams of light that are controlled by using the analogue sticks, and pressing the triggers as you guide the light through the memory fragments. The difference is that unlike other games in this genre where you control the entity as a whole. You will be controlling each laser separately. A thumb stick and trigger button is set to each laser. I found this to get quite challenging at times, especially towards the end of the game. The gameplay is all about precision, timing and position.

Laserlife Review Screenshot 2

The stages are divided into three phases. In the first phase you use the lasers to simply collect the memories. You have to gather enough of these memory molecules to get access to the next stage. You then move onto the second stage, where the aim is to guide yourself through a series of gates. Then in the final stage you use your lasers to dodge obstacles. Having these different gameplay styles kept things fresh. With most rhythm games when you miss certain targets or points it affects the music, but this doesn’t happen here. I thought that it was a bit of a shame as it would have offered more of a challenge and would have felt more satisfying.

The game is very repetitive at times, with each memories stages being played out almost identically to the previous. You pass through the stages of the memories seems almost like a routine, rather than a challenge. It would have been nice to have seen variations in style or themes to keep things more interesting.

The overall presentation of the game is fairly interesting with vibrant colours, bright lights and fantastic music. The music has a real sci-fi feel and suits the gameplay well. The music progresses and changes throughout the game which works really well and adds another layer of depth to the experience. It’s a shame that the game’s levels were not divided by song. It would have been good to replay stages with favourite tracks.

Laserlife Review Screenshot 3

Sadly, Laserlife doesn’t offer much time to experience this gameplay. With only 12 levels offered by Laserlife, I finished the game in around four hours. If you’re a gamer who likes to compete online or like collecting Trophies, you’ll get far more time out of the game.

In conclusion, Laserlife attempts to rejuvenate the rhythm-style game genre by introducing new gameplay mechanics and an interesting plot to go with it. Unfortunately, while Laserlife delivers with gameplay and atmosphere, it’s a fairly short game and the story ends up being a little underwhelming. If you’re looking for a short experience with interesting mechanics, great visuals and electronic soundtrack then you may enjoy this. Id recommend Laserlife if you like games like Entwined or Amplitude.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Microsoft Xbox One code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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