The new year is now three weeks old and half of the population has already given up their resolution to lose weight. The other half either had a different resolution or are planning to go to the gym tomorrow if they wake up before noon. I chose to do something other than lose weight in 2010. My goal is to buy less games and play more free indie titles. This deal with myself led me to a great free bullet-hell title, Genetos.
In one sentence, Genetos would be called an evolutionary, cross-generational shmup. The game starts with a Space Invaders motif. White, squid-like aliens methodically drop towards you as you move left and right while being able to shoot two bullets-per-screen (Space invaders couldn’t process any more in 1978) at them. Once you blast enough Invaders into pixel dust you encounter a mutation; the level’s boss. Beat him and you advance to the next level (I know, I’m as surprised at that as you are); modeled after Galaxian. Level 3 is in the style of Galaga, and keeps advancing in levels modeled after the next evolutionary step in the Shoot-em-up genre.

What strikes this games nostalgic chords even more than level/enemy design is the way your ship develops. Each enemy you defeat drops experience orbs. Grab enough orbs and you level up into the ship from the next shmup generation. The space invaders tank becomes a Galaxian-styled ship; giving you the ability to shoot a stream of bullets (by holding the shoot button), and move up and the map – giving you more mobility.
Genetos is a fantastic game. It also stands as a great cultural piece due because you are able to actively play through shmup history. Also, it makes one wonder about other games in this style. What would a platformer-styled game look like? Would it even work? Super Mario has pretty much been jumping the same way since his inception.

The game can be found here.