Ever imagine what a steam-punk Englishman would do to a Spanish and Martian alliance in historical America if they ever met on the field of battle? If yes, then Jamestown may be your kind of experience. Jamestown is a shmup or shoot’em up by Final Form Entertainment, an independent game company. The game is set in supposed Mars or historical American locations with Martians aiding the Spanish. Now, I am a history major, but I will spare you any historical debate over the authenticity of the information presented in this game because you are probably going to play this game to have fun not learn things.
Jamestown’s story is really not all that fancy and only really serves to set the stage for the game itself - I won't spoil anything for you. Through the course of the game you battle your way through the five main levels in order to defeat the Martian menace. Gameplay itself is rather tight and pretty perfect as far as shmups go. You have eventual access to several different ships that all have different elements and weapons, but other than that there are no weapon upgrades or stuff of that nature to pick up. Although picking up gold with any of the mechs or flying machines will allow you to use your shield to block bullets. This experience at its core is really a bullet hell game. If you do not enjoy dodging seemingly endless numbers of projectiles all while your life is in the balance, you may want to put this game down and walk away. But for those who are fans of the genre, this game presents some pretty interesting dodging fun.
Although there are few levels, many of them require replays on different difficulties in order to unlock the next stage of the game. Although this may seem annoying, this also allows you to get gold in order to unlock new ships and even eventually some alternate story routes. With replayability also comes the bonus matches which scare the crap out of me because they are extremely difficult and extremely fun at the same time. The game also features local multiplayer, but no real online multiplayer. It also has leaderboards on Steam. All four of the players have alternate control schemes.
Jamestown’s art and music are also awesome. The music is classically stylized and is even orchestrated. The sprites in the game are highly detailed and enemies are varied. The stages themselves also have interesting atmospheres and effects which vary from stage to stage. Although there are really only five main stages, they all present enough pretty pixels that you may not notice everything on your first playthrough.
All in all the game is pretty fun for fans of the shmup genre, but I would avoid it if you hate this style of games or are not a fan of trail and error. Also, if a lack of online multiplayer co-op is a turnoff for you then you may want to avoid this game or find some people in your local area to play with.
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Graphics |
9.0 |
Pretty sprites and stages along with great effects and explosions. This game is a visually pleasing experience. |
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Audio |
8.5 |
Great music varied from stage to stage by a talented classical composer. Sound effects are rather generic though. |
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Single Player |
9.0 |
Difficult and fun. This game’s single player also has different endings and new things to unlock such as gauntlet mode and bonus stages. |
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Multiplayer |
8.0 |
The game’s multiplayer (which I experienced by trying to play multiple characters at once) seems like it would be tons of fun. It has an interesting system in which your team can be infinitely revived instead of sharing health as long as one person is alive. |
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Replay |
8.0 |
Multiple difficulties, leader boards, and co-op gameplay lead this game to be pretty replayable. |
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Overall |
8.5 |
Fun game. Could be longer but other than that it is a great experience. |
