From Executive Producer Michael Bay
When I was 16, I finished writing my one and only novel. At over 300 pages of single-spaced, 12-point-sized text, it was a behemoth achievement for me, two years in the making. It also sucked. My mother—bless her—couldn’t get past the first fifty pages. I will forever treasure my deformed, malnourished book baby, but I will never self-publish it, let alone charge money for it. Even if I reach Stephen King levels of popularity, my first book will never see the light of public eye, much like the erotic retelling of Care Bears I penned for Netflix.
Spacecats with Lasers feels like a programmer’s first video game. He tried his darned hardest, but his skill could not match his ambitions. The final product ended up being amateurish. Sure, the game may mark the first step in a remarkable career for the programmer, but unfortunately, this first step landed in the litter box. Maybe we could accept it if it were free, but it’s not. I know this is not Bitten Toast’s first game, but unlike the commendable Rocket Fist, Spacecats with Lasers would have done better to remain in the developer’s unpublished portfolio than with the rest of the eShop’s shovelware.
What is it?
After years of feline oppression, the pug king has rallied all of the mutated mice scattered across the universe and has launched a war against the cat species. You control Meowsky Tongue-Catcher, the Puss Empire’s ace pilot, who must destroy wave after wave of mice forces to ultimately assassinate the pug king and quash the last of the resistance. All seems to be going smoothly for Meowsky until he realizes he has single-handedly caused mass genocide. In an act of retribution, he allows the mice forces to decimate his ship with him inside. Spacecats doesn’t actually contain any of this plot, but it makes for a great rough draft for my second novel.
As I dramatized, Spacecats is a multidirectional shooter, tasking you with killing ever-growing waves of mice, with the pug king making an appearance every ten levels. You shoot with ZR, reload with R, and dodge with ZL. Between levels, you choose a permanent upgrade (increased fire rate, more health, larger lasers), and enemies can drop temporary powerups. Lose too much health or hit an enemy directly and you die. Lose all three lives, and it’s game over.
You can choose from one of three difficulty levels at the beginning, and different hats and ships can be purchased with trinkets you earn from playing. If you’re feeling frisky, you can even look at your high scores. If you’re feeling super frisky, you can close out of the game altogether.
What’s bad?
- Much like the life of a moon, Spacecats’ gameplay is slow, dull, and based predominantly on moving in big circles. Your enemies largely gravitate toward the middle of the level, so circle-strafing will help you dodge almost all bullets and bogeys. This may make waves easy, but it sure doesn’t make them go quickly. Your ship moves through space like it’s lard, and enemies soak up several hits before blowing up. Add a small ammo clip and a long reload time and Spacecats is only one half of the bullet hell it wants to be.
- Upgrades barely impact gameplay. They typically improve your ship’s capabilities by five or ten percent, but these raises account for little more than cost-of-living as each wave brings more enemies. In another game, these upgrades would make for cool offensive or defensive builds, but for Spacecats, the upgrade screen only offers a change of scenery.
- Spacecats’ bugs can kill you, as if even they know you shouldn’t be playing. One glitch causes you to be stuck reloading, and another prevents you from respawning after you die, forcing you to quit out.
What’s also bad?
- If the bugs don’t kill you, poor design choices will finish the job. The camera sits at a tilt rather than directly above you. This allows you to see more space above you but leaves little room below you, allowing enemies to creep up on you before your floaty controls can guide you to safety. Your dodge is unintuitive because you dodge toward where you’re aiming, not where you’re moving. This may seem innocuous until you realize you’re typically shooting at enemies when you need to dodge suddenly. Two enemy types further mess up gameplay. Shield mice provide impenetrable barriers to their neighbors until they’re destroyed, and these neighbors tend to cluster and create a forcefield around your target. Killing them will try your patience more than your skill. Yellow laser mice somehow prove more annoying. Sometimes their lasers barely follow you; other times they cling to you like sweaty skin on leather, destroying a third of your health.
- If the presentation were a space ship, it would be a cardboard cut-out of a PT Cruiser with “UFO” painted on it. The character models seem like free downloadable assets designed for the Wii, and the backgrounds of each stage are no more than static images of faraway galaxies. The cliché electronica soundtrack attempts to create a heart-thumping beat but comes off as a toddler pounding at a keyboard. Hitting mute is recommended, followed by power.
- Spacecats is a sickly kitten with no meat on its bones. New enemies stop at the tenth wave, and the hard difficulty only emphasizes the game’s faults. With no online leaderboards, there is absolutely no point to continue playing past an hour unless Spacecats is your final trial before achieving Zen.
What’s the verdict?
Spacecats with Lasers earns the dubious award of being the worst game on my Switch, a feat which I hope stays with it. With games of this caliber, I would love to read a review written by the developer. Would they criticize their game as viciously as I do? Could they honestly recommend their game to anyone? We all have rough patches in our careers, but ideally, others don’t have to experience them.
Arbitrary Statistics:
- Score: 2.5
- Time Played: Over 3 hours
- Number of Players: 1
- Games Like It on Switch: Assault Android Cactus+, I Hate Running Backwards