Nostalgia is king. Nostalgia makes us look back at things that in the harsh uncompromising and intolerant light of today should be filed under the label ‘rubbish’, and sit back in our chairs and go ‘YEEEEEEEEEAAAHHHHH!’ Having taken my two boys to Hunstanton for the day the other week, the glorious moment came where they fell asleep and it was daddy’s turn to have an hour of fun. My wife settled down with a cup of tea and her Kindle, and I headed straight for the arcades. Delighted to find a Suzuka 8 hour machine, I was crushed by how rubbish it had become in its twenty years. I still put a fiver into it though, and I still felt like a boss riding round a very poorly rendered Suzuka circuit. Then I found Time Crysis 2, and I didn’t even notice that, whilst standing with my arm held out straight in front of me like I was in a duel with the Duke of Beaufort, that I was shooting people made out of cubes. Then I played Jurassic Park and it was awesome, but you knew that already. So yeah – nostalgia. The ability to ignore cackness, even through the lens of next generation graphical and story-telling prowess, to see inner beauty. And that beauty is you, as a 10 year old surrounded by your mates in front of an arcade machine, setting the high score and putting your name in as POO.

Now you may be wondering why I am spouting this bewildering nonsense. No, I’m not having a mid-life crisis and pandering to a yearning for all things from my early teens. Well I am, but that’s manifesting in a different way. That’s why I’ve just bought a skateboard and some Vans. The reason I’ve been chatting this gibberish at you is because I’ve been playing an XBLA game called PowerUp, and its made me very happy. Why? Because it’s a game that gives you all the nostalgia you can stomach without any of the rubbish drawbacks when it’s thrust into modern day, exposed from behind its rose tinted spectacles.

Now in its third iteration, PowerUp is a side scrolling shooter brought to you by one man indie developer Psychotic Psoftware. Having successfully received funding from its Kickstarter programme, PowerUp has found its way onto XBLA and by all accounts appears to be doing rather well. It isn’t a complicated plot; you are the last remaining human, desperately escaping as the alien army destroy your planet in the only remain space ship. Accompanied only by the auto pilot, you side scroll your way through hundreds of enemies, shooting and weaving your way out of trouble as your assailants grow ever larger and over the top. You are lucky enough to be armed with several guns, and you’re able to collect upgrades for them as you go to make the rate of fire faster, more powerful or with a greater spread.

Now for anyone who’s taken faltering steps into the world of game journalism, you will be aware that alongside playing the actual game, you have to do your research. You scour the internet, with YouTube playing on one screen and half a dozen websites open on the other; part looking for inspiration and part checking that you’re actually typing your own opinion and not one you’ve read elsewhere. So I was quite concerned when I headed over to Pschotic Psoftware’s website, only to find that it contained nothing beyond a logo and an email address. Fortunately, having sent an email to the address listed, I got an email back from the game’s developer Mike, and blissfully he was more than happy to tell me about his influences and inspirations.

“PowerUp was clearly influenced by the scrolling shooter, I mean that’s pretty obvious, right? I don’t really deviate from the plan much. Well, at least, not at first glance. In the beginning I was just trying to learn to code a game, so I started off emulating the sort of space shooter I saw a lot of growing up. The likes of Truxton (or Tatsujin) asside, I was mostly influenced by the looks and mechanics of the European games market rather than the Japanese games we see so much of on XBLIG. Silk Worm, Chronos, Xenon and Dragon Breed were up there, but the game that had the biggest influence on the appearance of PowerUp was probably Team 17’s Project-X for the Amiga.”

For those unfamiliar with Project-X, you can see the DNA very much apparent running through PowerUp. It has a very similar look and feel, which all adds to the nostalgic charm of the game. That’s not to say that this is a shameless rip off and nor is it a one trick pony, as Mike was at pains to point out.

“(As)..I started to branch out a little with the controls and weapons available to the player’s ship, and for this I drew heavily on what I could vaguely remember of the selection mechanics in Hellfire. While I hadn’t played the Mega Drive classic for a long time, I did remember the awesome abillity to choose a directional weapon for every scenario. I wanted to play with this concept in PowerUp while letting it evolve of it’s own accord as I further developed the game, so I made a point not to revisit these games while working on PowerUp”

So what more can I tell you? Well aside from anything else, PowerUp is really good fun. I’ve got Far Cry 3 sitting on my shelf still in its wrapper, and yet I find myself sitting on the edge of my sofa weaving my little space ship in and out of flying saucers, ducking outrageous laser beams and swearing furiously as a little white pellet catches me when I’m not paying attention. Aside from the fact that’s its good old fashioned fun, it really does remind you of the games that you played in your youth. When your console at home couldn’t quite match the mighty obelisks of awesomeness that were the machines in your local arcade, but you stayed at home with your friend, playing for hours and hours and loving every retina scorching moment. You want to feel like a 10 year old again? Chuck the space hopper in the bin, fire up the Xbox and get involved with PowerUp. Trust me, you’ll love it.

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