Housemarque may now be best known for PS5 exclusive Returnal, but its track record of turning out top-notch PlayStation games stretches back much further. Throughout PS3 and PS4’s lifespans, the Finnish studio established a reputation for reimagining all-action arcade classics with added depth and eye-melting visuals, culminating in 2017’s explosive Nex Machina.
At its heart, Nex Machina is a twin-stick shooter inspired by early ’80s coin-op Robotron 2084. In each compact level, hordes of killer robots charge towards you from all directions, and you blast them to bits before they can get you. Simple. But in Housemarque’s hands that basic template is made far more sophisticated – Nex Machina is to Robotron what the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is to a prehistoric cave painting. That’s not least because it’s a visual feast. Following on from Housemarque’s PS4 launch title, Resogun, Nex Machina’s droids and landscapes are built from voxels, giving everything a chunky feel, but also enabling flashy effects – the way the ground ripples under the impact of explosions, for example, or how robots disintegrate into hundreds of tiny cubes.
