This week, MKAU Gaming was fortunate enough to check out the Steam demo for ‘HoverGrease 2’, an upcoming release developed and published by Altergaze. After learning that HoverGrease sadly failed amidst the carnage of the pandemic, it was refreshing to see that a game enjoyed by thousands would be making a triumphant return. Without further ado, let’s dive into the chaos and carnage that I had the pleasure of experiencing with the HoverGrease 2 demo.

This Top-down, X Hero shooter blends the conventional elements of team-based hero shooters like Overwatch and Team Fortress with the arcade thrill of a twin-stick shooter. It is a super fast-paced game, where your reflexes and team’s positioning play a crucial role. Throughout this demo, you’ll play the first four levels of the single-player story or join the 5v5 multi-player during beta weekends. 

With a multiplayer beta weekend fast approaching, I decided to familiarise myself with the various combat mechanics while checking out the single-player story mode. Although I only managed to glimpse the game’s story playing through the four demo levels, I foresee a pretty interesting and captivating tale of revenge. Rather than falling in love with each character for their personalities, I connected more to them via gameplay. Having ten characters to choose from, all with unique weapons and abilities gives the game a tonne of replayability. 

The gameplay loop has the player focusing on an easy to play hard to master approach. Each character while being easy to use also comes with its own learning curve, some a lot steeper than others. Among the most challenging to become effective with were Madeye Bull and Piggy.

These two characters are very agile and hit hard, but being melee, dash-and-slash characters makes them incredibly difficult to use and avoid taking hits. Kimmy Frog does a lot of damage with her rockets and splash damage but has a lengthy reload time. 

While playing through the demo story levels with multiple characters I noticed several issues, ranging from minor annoyances to rage-inducing. During a fight with one of the elite enemies or mini-bosses, I noticed that he only said the same two or three quips. While they were solid to hear at first and quite funny, wear incredibly thin when the fight drags on for ten minutes because they are so hard to hit. This brings me to my rage-inducing issue with the enemy AI.

The enemy AI’s behaviour is extremely erratic in the way that they move and dart about. Rather than make a typical B-line toward the player, they appear as if they are hesitant and at the same time trying to be aggressive. The hesitance of the enemy AI makes them incredibly difficult to hit consistently. For a veteran twin-stick shooter fan like myself, I found it utterly frustrating and as if all of my skill in the genre was thrown out of the window. 

The multi-player weekend had finally arrived and I couldn’t have been more thankful after experiencing the awful enemy behaviour. In multi-player teams of five face off to take control of a capture zone. The team with the most zone points at the end of a round wins. Winning three rounds will secure the victory for your team. This mode is loads of fun and often chaotic but not without its own issues, which I will talk about in a bit. 

At the start of each round players can choose their loadout which they will take into battle, by spending points within the loadout shop. Earning zone capture points and skillfully taking down opponents will earn you more currency to spend at the loadout shop next round. I really enjoyed the element of team strategy that this brought into each round, while also allowing me to feel even more powerful when taking the fight to the enemy.

Upon each death, there is a cooldown on the respawn which for me took a little wind out of the sails. Being able to return to the fight, even if a second or two faster, I feel would help to retain the super fast-paced nature of the battle. Playing on multiple different servers outside of my home region was the biggest surprise. Even if I was playing with a higher ping it still felt smooth to play on and I was able to remain very competitive. 

The only big issue I faced regarding the multi-player was that at times the player identifiers would often disappear. I’m almost certain I would have been hearing my friends saying, “Dude I’m on your team”. Even though the identifiers were disappearing at times it didn’t take too much away from the fun factor of the chaos unfolding throughout the arena. 

HoverGrease 2 is tonnes of fun and oozing plenty of potential. If you’re a fan of twin-stick shooters then I highly recommend you go and check out the demo. I believe that the very small team at Altergaze have got their work cut out for them in the coming weeks, but are on track to achieving something pretty incredible within the top-down competitive space. I very much look forward to seeing the final product.

Written by: Gary Nielsen