Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2021

  Game was almost pretty fun, but visual clarity was a constant struggle even with effects turned all the way down, and for some reason the game would constantly stutter slightly between 54-60fps even with a 3060TI and 3700X. Aside from those issues though, the game seemed decent, though even from my short play session I do agree with what most of the other negative reviews have stated.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 16, 2022

  I binded the controls for my X BOX controller but in the tutorial mode, the game pauses during the first instruction and it gives the message "press B3 to continue" (which I binded to the Y button of my controller), but it just doesn't continue and I surely tried other buttons and none of them work. So it's a fail from the start for me. I will refund it.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 22, 2022

  This gem of a game is essentially Jetstrike (others have said LUFTRAUSERS, which I haven't played), mixed with rogue and then spiced up with an acid trip. I will admit I was confused and frustrated for the first couple of games because the interface is somewhat obtuse and it takes a while to understand the mechanics. Once you find the rhythm though, it is hugely addictive and greatly rewards skilful play. Your attack fighter is incredibly manoeuvrable, with the ability to strafe and reverse as well as the hyperspace jump which allows you to de-sync through enemies and weapon fire alike for a brief period. Trying to find an effective playstyle for whatever random gear and levels you come across while managing persistent resources like money and health make the game more than just a shooter. The only downside is that I find that it tends to hurt my eyes after a couple of games due to the small, rapidly moving sprites and psychedelic colour schemes. Despite this, I have already played 12 hours and have yet to finish the game or unlock even half of the gear available. The developer is still delivering free updates with new content, despite stating that the game has been a commercial failure. Certainly, it is not a deserved one for the asking price and the enjoyment received.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 29, 2022

  Hyperspace Dogfights has to be one of the most enjoyably addictive, brilliantly crafted passion projects I’ve ever had the pleasure of recommending. It is moderately complex, is brimming with style and flair, and offers a vast selection of ships, weapons, items, and enemies to test your mettle against. In this review I will explain what made this game quickly one of my favorites, as well as why it feels so unique compared to other games in this genre. HDog is an objective-oriented shoot-’em-up, meaning you fly around doing things other than simply shooting planes down. Your craft utilizes a four-directional booster system that allows you to hover in the air, then immediately go right, left, back or forward at will. Mouse aim (which I highly encourage other players to use) then acts as the craft’s rudder and elevators, helping it precisely point in a direction even while stalling. This movement system enables you to shoot at enemies while remaining static, or to fly along the ground as you engage them - in stark contrast to games like LUFTRAUSERS, where you briefly stop, point the aircraft at the enemy, then point away in order to make your escape. This sets a high skill ceiling for players to reach, but in turn makes capturing objectives, chasing after opponents, and avoiding damage trivial. Weapons are then deliberately made to be inaccurate while boosting, further encouraging the use of reverse and side-thrusters in order to line yourself up with a target. This shift is shown on the digital aim display, getting narrower or wider depending on the craft’s state of motion. The rest of the UI is just as intuitive. The Shield UI is a rhombus that gets narrower with each hit; targeting warnings are shown around the jet, “calibrated” at the start of each run and “rebooted” if you suffer EMP damage, which is quite a nice touch-up. Attacks and cooldowns are telegraphed through crosses, sparks, popup text and sound cues. Damage numbers and kill indicators further help convey information in the heat of battle. Each kill crossed out is followed by noticeable hitstop, making killing enemies satisfying. Crosshair shape and color can be changed to help contrast them from the game’s background, and vanity effects that conceal enemies can be turned on and off at will. Your ship is briefly able to jump into a different plane of existence in order to avoid taking damage. Jumping allows you to go through terrain and obstacles (which otherwise take out regular enemies), and pass your heat signature onto other enemies when targeted by missiles. As far as I’m aware this mechanic is unique to HDog. It provides another way to get rid of homing projectiles, otherwise a nuisance for both novice and veteran players alike. Another aspect unique to this game is how lenient it is towards collisions with the ground and cloud layer, as well as collision damage in general. In Jet Lancer, dropping to sea level is a death sentence; in HDog, you can survive [i]inside[/i] the ground, and even deliberately dive into it to avoid gunfire. In fact, ship collision damage is a stat an entire run can be built around, improved through passive items acquired throughout it. Speaking of stats, the ones in HDog can be considered an entirely unique facet of it. There are over 20 attributes that can be influenced by items, including jet weight, turn rate, the strength of the boost, acceleration and stall speeds, how much friction and force projectiles extrude, how fast Shields regenerate and how strong they are, the length of the craft’s Jump - and that’s not even talking about Max HP or damage modifiers usually present in other such games. HDog replaces common game terminology with pseudo-realistic jargon, which is fascinating. Weapons that utilize bullets do so through “kinetic” damage, lasers are “photon” weapons, a stun is a “disorient”, fire is “cascade”, difficulty is “escalation”. Beating waves flawlessly increases the Luck stat, which is aptly named “coolness”. There are far too many of these to name, but the game successfully manages to build what could be considered a feasible reality around its far-future setting, that is heavily supported by these tooltips. Each ship starts with an Active item that can then be exchanged for other items; items that fire missiles, drop mines, clear projectiles, heal you, afflict enemies with debuffs, drop money or item containers, and more. Even if you ignore the weapon arsenal, all aforementioned game mechanics provide a myriad of tools to both deal with and avoid damage, as well as navigate the terrain, and dispatch enemies with speed and precision. Then come the guns, given to you throughout the game at random. Those are split into different damage and projectile types, as well as separated by tiers of quality, with random modifiers on top. Unlike other dogfighting games HDog elects to go down the Roguelite route, where it drops new items after each wave, instead of having you select a loadout before a run and sticking to it for its duration. As a result, runs end up being highly varied in terms of equipment, which extends the replayability of the game. You are also actively encouraged to unlock and try new playstyles out, instead of leaning towards a meta through one “best” approach. You can still curate your experience by deliberately using ships that start with favorable equipment, however runs will vastly differ from one another by the end of each session. There are five main damage types in the game. Kinetic and EMP weapons fire spheres or bolts at varying degrees of effectiveness; Explosive weapons fire grenades, mines, or flechette; Photon weapons fire beams that inflict debuffs, and Melee weapons utilize strike zones, combos, and charge attacks. While I genuinely appreciate the variety the game puts on offer, players will quickly find out that, in true Roguelite fashion, not all weapons are created equal. Despite the imbalanced weapon types, HDog has other great things going for it. A rewarding meta-progression system ensures you stay occupied for hours upon hours on end, progressively unlocking hundreds of Passives through combining weapon loadouts, losing, winning, or playing games, beating enemies and bosses, reaching different zones, using specific ships, completing challenges, and reaching certain waves in Endless mode. Passive items are also split into tiers, with the lowest usually providing weaker stat upgrades, the highest providing game-carrying items, and the in-between providing stronger stat boosts with a negative trade-off that requires consideration on the players’ part. The Passive pool further modifies a dozen or so unique stats, like Shot Lifetime, Count, Sway, Homing Force, Explosion Size etc. Each upgrade feels significant, and has a great piece of storytelling behind it which I highly encourage players to read. There is a system in place that rewards good performance by raising the Luck stat with every perfect wave, which in turn affects loot drop rates and quality, heal chances, and money gained. The longer you play, the higher the difficulty gets, allowing you to make more money at a slightly heightened risk. Destroying ships only partially keeps them alive to fire at you as they fall out of the sky, while destroying them fully creates debris, which players then have to avoid if they don’t want to damage their Shields. This game is an amazing blend of unique game mechanics, with hundreds of items and weapons to unlock, almost two dozen ship variants to utilize, new zone and boss variants to discover, secrets, multiple playable modes, as well as optional lore for those who want to further indulge themselves with the incredible world-building this game does. It is downright addictive - and I don’t use that term lightly. If you’re a fan of Roguelites and think a dogfighting game might be up your alley, you owe yourself a favor to try this one.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 9, 2022

  Do you like Luftrausers, Furious Angels, AFTERBURN, or any games comparable to them? If so, you're going to be in for a treat here, as Hyperspace Dogfights takes key traits of all those games, mashes them together, and then injects itself with drugs. I'm not making that up, either, this game goes over the top with how hectic it can get, bosses are insane, your jet can literally jump through space and time to dodge incoming bullets and can also pull a move straight out of the Ace Combat book by dodging over enemies while there are missiles locked onto you to redirect those missiles to lock onto the opponent instead. Build variety exists in this game, and you'll acquire different weapons, active items, and passive items in your adventure towards the final zone. I've beaten this game as everything from a slow-flying gunship that randomly teleports all over the place and shotguns out thirty or more airbursting mines every time it dodges to an extremely nimble glass cannon fight that would die in one shot but was able to project a giant energy axe out of the front of itself which I used to cut the final boss in half so many times in a second the DOT I had accrued got so excessive that the game just shrugged its shoulders and made said final boss explode in a blast so large it caused my audio to temporarily give out. You will die in this game, you'll die a lot, but every death is an improvement, and soon enough you'll be so skilled you can go from the first sector to the final boss without ever taking a hit. It's not Dark Souls, though, the game gives you some slack here and there, and if you prioritize it and get the right items you can build for so much survivability the enemy can't even kill you if you want them to. For something that's only $9.99, I think this is frankly a steal, and while I'm not religiously no-lifing it, I'd consider it a 'painkiller' game much like AFTERBURN is. If you need some senseless fun and just want to have fun jetting around and blowing stuff up? Fire it up, spend a few hours, have a fun time, go do something else when you get bored. For what's effectively a budget indie title I think it's criminally underrated, and Hyperspace Dogfights honestly feels like something I'd find in an 80s arcade cabinet at a bowling alley, except it'd be the kind of cabinet I'd likely waste twenty dollars on in one sitting without even thinking twice.
• gamedeal user

  May 15, 2018

  The spiritual successor to LUFTRAUSERS I've waited years for. High speed action, lots of content and fantastic graphics. Worth every penny.
• gamedeal user

  May 16, 2018

  WOW WOW WOW. This game came out of no where for me and im so glad i gave it a chance. It has everything i could want, Difficulty and skill based, replayability, Tons and tons of costumization and a awesome dev behind it! I wont lie to you, it would probably start really challenging for ya but once you get the hang of it, youll be pulling of sick moves and crazy tight combat situations in no time. I cant get enough of this one great job Devs.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 14, 2018

  Oddly enough, and in an unexpected way, you get exactly what the title evokes in your mind: Hyperspace Dogfights. The game has its quirks that others may find annoying, but if you can adapt to the controls and the tactics that are necessary to survive in this game you will find an extremely satisfying experience. You will play a game that is challenging, fun, and very addicting in that "One more run" sort of way. Definitely a highlight of 2018 for me in terms of gaming, especially since I didn't really know anything about the game or games that it is compared to by other people. Highly recommend it to people that enjoy high skill games and rogue-lites.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 16, 2018

  [b]As someone who really enjoyed [i]LUFTRAUSERS[/i], I am completely on board with the idea of a similiar arcade shooter with more depth.[/b] While [i]Hyperspace Dogfights[/i] gets a lot right, there are just too many small things that add up to me walking away. [b]What I like about this title is the mashup of an arcade dogfight shooter with rogue-ish elements.[/b] While I do like the stylish aesthetic, I don't think it works for the game. I personally find the background patterns distracting in a bad way. The first thing I noticed when I visited the store page was that most of the ships are tiny little things that are a bit hard to see. This all adds up to too much confusion for me. Now, add in a 4k monitor and I'm out (I know things are being worked on for larger displays, so maybe this will be fixed). And finally, I find some of the sound effects a bit grating, but I can look past most of that. [b]Pros:[/b] +Great idea and the price point is fair +The artwork is nice and the whole thing feels polished [b]Cons:[/b] -I don't find it all that fun or addicting -The artwork is almost too detailed where things are hard to see; I think [i]LUFTRAUSERS[/i] artwork was simple and used only a few colors for a reason -[strike]No controller support, and this is one of those games that would be fun to play from the couch[/strike] implemented but I haven't tried it personally yet -Needs further support for 4k monitors [b]This is a niche game for sure, so if you find yourself perusing the store page - you very well may love it.[/b] I just wish I was compelled to keep playing.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 18, 2018

  Video: https://youtu.be/CSXx7UAzwOg I really enjoyed Hyperspace Dogfights initially but as you keep playing you realize there isn't too much going on. I think they obviously pulled from Luftrousers and that's great, they nailed that part. The flying feels fantastic, the controls are very responsive. However, the screen is so cluttered. WIth the tiny detailed ship and the fact that enemies can hide behind clouds there's too much to look at. Anyway, I like the mission based structure of the game. It's a lot more interesting than going in and having to kill everything. Even taking photos of enemy structures is a neat idea. Yet the items you get between these missions are really confusing. Some of them have extremely confusing descriptions and I can't tell what they do. Overall, it's OK. It's acceptable in some places and meh in others. There's nothing that gives me that "one more run" feeling.