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licensed musical track that pulls from current
EDM and House style music. In this respect
Aaero plays like a rail shooter with you in full
control and the stage whizzes past. Your goal is
to trace the light ribbons in the stages which
activate the music and rack up your points that
are tallied on the worldwide leaderboards.
This would be enough for me to love the game as
it was as it’s pretty much how Amplitude (one of
my favorite games of all time) played, but the
team at Mad Fellows took things one step
further than most rhythm games by adding
death and combat. While traveling through
tracks you’ll not only have to contend with
obstacles that must be avoided, but also with
baddies that really want to do you in.
The best thing about the combat is that your
shots are timed to the music so that when you
engage enemies in combat everything lines up
musically. This also ads to the challenge as your
shots need to be targeted before you can fire (up
to 8 target per shot) so combat isn’t simply a
case of shooting as it would be in something like
a 'Shmup'. On top of the basic combat Aaero
feature some insanely huge boss fights that with
keep you coming back for more. I mean, how
often is it that you get to fight a giant sandworm
that you can also fly through?
The base game itself won’t take you all that long
to complete as learning the stages isn’t all that
hard, but beating the game really ins’t the point
here. Where the magic happens is in the drive to
jack up your score and try your best to work
your way up the leaderboards. I’ve never much
cared for leaderboards in the past, but Aaero has
this pull on me to keep coming back and doing
just a little bit better each time.
What’s great about this is that you can have a
perfect run and still not crack the top 10. This
happens because killing enemies also counts
toward your score, as does finding the secret
"It’s hard not to play Aaero and not
have a great time with it"
items in each stage that need to be destroyed.
Aaero is far more than simply tracing beams of
light. In that sense Aaero is a really rewarding
experience as there is a lot of joy you get from
bettering your runs and moving up the ranks.
Aaero It’s going to take you all that long to
finish the it, but unlike most, it will have you
coming back again and again. This one is
definitely a game that just might end up on a a
few “Game of the Year” list later this year. I just
hope they add some DLC track packs to keep
things fresh for fans. And if you know me, I’m the
last person you’d expect to want DLC.
- Jorge Luis