Rise and Shine review

Rise & Shine is a charming, yet brutal side-scrolling Shooter that will have you tearing your hair out, but will keep you coming back for more.

Set in Gamearth and the story centres on the journey of a boy called Rise, who quickly teams up with a rather special pistol called shine. Gamearth has been invaded by robots intent on destroying everything in its path and it’s up to this unlikely duo to save everyone.

Despite the cartoony graphics, this game will swallow you, chew and spit you out again and again and again. You don’t have much health at all and there are so many powerful enemies to contend with. At first it feels like the game is really unbalanced in the game’s favour, but this game is all about quick thinking and good weapon choice.

You have three types of ammo, normal bullets, electric bullets and radio controlled bullets that can be slowed down and sped up in an instant, they can also be moved around to to solve puzzles. In fact, every encounter you face is a bit of puzzle, you’ll die, try a different way, try again and eventually find your way past the enemy. There is limited cover in the game and even that doesn’t guarantee your safety as flying enemies just hover above you and take you out. It’s a bit of a shame the checkpoints can work against you but you learn to deal with it eventually.

The boss fights are spectacular and really tough, if you get through to the end you’ll certainly feel like you had earned it. Although I referred to the graphics as cartoony, that’s not a jibe, the game looks amazing. When you die, it’s always gruesome, the dialogue is funny and despite the million deaths I suffered I’m glad I got to spend some time with the game. If you a fancy a brutal, but short challenge Rise and Shine is definitely the game for you.

Thanks to Xbox and Evolve for supporting TiX