Game Type is a horizontal Shmup where we play as some girl facing off against cats, Honda Civics and giant crabs. Why? Because why not seems to be this title’s philosophy as you are suddenly faced with a poor copy of the Xbox 360’s interface upon loading up the game. You must navigate these (fake) ad filled menus in order to find the actual game itself which may be a bit difficult if you’ve never used a 360 before but luckily you can simply press the H key for a red arrow to guide you to your destination. Most of the fake ads do nothing if you click on them though I must admit I had a chuckle at the Uface “Your privacy matters… to you.” quip in an ad. Real Xbox Live Indie games like Soulcaster and Escape Goat are also advertised ironically enough considering they were just making fun of advertisements.
That Xbox Dashboard parody is the only joke in this title. While one may expect more jokes from this type of tongue in cheek title but that is not really the case. Upon entering the actual game you will be faced with really random enemies in a bland never changing background. The only enemy that can maybe be considered funny is the cats but everything else is just plain weird, though not in a funny kind of way. We have two forms of attacks at our disposal, one is a narrow shot that fires in 3 separate directions and a wide beam kick that causes far more damage to anything in your path. The narrow shot is pretty weak and will mostly be used when an enemy is right above or below you and you can’t position yourself to fire the kick beam.
The kick beam is not infinite however, it runs on a bar that can only be refilled when you collect more money. Money is dropped when you destroy an enemy and will automatically be drawn to you if you stop firing even for a fraction of a second. That magnetism is a really handy feature as the screen is nearly always chock full of enemies and I could have seen it being a real issue if you had to chase after that cash only to crash right into an enemy. There is a multiplier meter that is filled up when collecting cash so it may be wise to manage exactly when you should pick up money if you care about high-scores. If you don’t then feel free to pick it up whenever you please as you do not get more lives or power-ups from reaching a certain score but by completing a wave.
Waves are exactly what they sound like and every time you complete one the game gets faster and more enemies will appear on screen. You will face off against the same giant cat boss every 4 rounds who gets harder and harder to defeat as the game goes on. Your activatable power-up allows you to slow down time and makes money drops more likely. It can be pretty useful as at times the enemies feel a tad bit too bullet spongy and numerous for your firepower to be able to dispose of them quickly enough. Game Type may be a joke title but it is no easy game and quickly gets serious as soon as you reach the 5th wave. Tons of enemies will approach you from all sides of the screens so not really a title that is going to ease someone new to the genre into the gist of things. I was honestly not expecting it to be a good shmup, much less a fun one but there you have it.
It’s unfortunate that the gameplay is weighed down heavily by pretty much everything else that makes a game from the sound effects to the art. I couldn’t care less about the graphics of the game but art is another matter. Everything is extremely bland looking with no good attributes to it. Same single bland background, same few bland enemies and nothing to break that monotony causes you to get tired of the game before long. The HUD transparency effect is a great feature so you don’t lose sight of your character when you reach the top of the screen however. The music is horrid and makes me want to bury my face in my hands and contemplate what I’m doing with my life.
Don’t get me started on how our character shouts “Parkour” every-time she fires her beam attack, that word is going to haunt me for a while. So bad art, bad music and little content yet good gameplay can indeed be worthwhile but I’m afraid that’s not the case here. In my opinion the asking price is a bit much for what this is and I was dead tired of this title after half an hour. Game Type was a joke title that could have been good yet its very tongue in cheek nature of appearing not to give a toss backfired on it. Still if you get this from a bundle or if a friend randomly gifts it to you thinking it is garbage it’s well worth booting up… as long as you mute your speakers before you cringe every-time someone says parkour in the future.
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