Caster is a fast paced third person casual arcade shooter from Elecorn. This game is intentionally retro in both sight and sound. The stages are reminiscent of the proto-3D environments of the early 90′s and the sounds are straight out of the mid 80′s arcades. The character you play could be described as Astro Boy meets Sonic the Hedgehog on acid. Some kind of high technology boy robot. You can launch a variety of energy attacks, can boost jump high into the air, and can run as fast as makes any sense at all. No thinking required. Just move and shoot and try to get the myriad assorted baddies before they get you. Just do it very quickly.
Five user characteristics can be upgraded with the money that you collect and a half a dozen different attacks can be acquired and improved as well. Never run out of ammo as all the weapons are energy based and run off your internal fusion reactor (I assume).
I enjoyed the game dynamics of Caster immediately, and I found myself being more and more impressed as the game progressed. I was not expecting to like this game as much as I do. The simple graphics are a real counterpoint to the more complex game play. This is a really fast action dynamic with foes that shoot rapidly and excessively. The twitch factor for this game is very high with fast responsive game play. The basic level layouts included land based, water island, lava island, air, and white-out snow maps. 15 different stages in all. Each attack has different effects (some leaving craters while others leave mounds), allowing the player to do some basic modification of the terrain in order to collect all the necessary elements.
The larger monsters you fight counter your speed and agility with strength, numbers and massive firepower. Against your maneuverability, the increased power of the large monsters make things a pretty fair fight and it looks really cool and outrageous to have massive swarms of missiles and attacks on the screen independently, all at once with no apparent slowdowns in your attacks or maneuvers.
The bottom line: Speed and responsiveness is where Caster really shines.
The short rounds combined with the simple collection based goals make this a great addition to the casual gamer’s arcade collection, and the price point of only $4.99 and multi-platform support makes this game accessible to almost anyone. For its extremely solid and enjoyable game play I give Caster 8.5 out of 10 points in the casual arcade class. Windows and Mac versions are available now for immediate download, Linux and iPhone versions coming soon.
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