Xbox Indie Games Review - Magnetic Wars

Magnetic Wars is a twin stick shooter at it's core but you can also attract/repel enemies and bullets using the left/right triggers.

The game comes with 10 levels and 4 difficulty levels so that's a total of 40 levels (even though there's only 10 different ones) for you to conquer. The level select screen shows which levels on which shows you all 40 levels and highlights the ones that you've completed. For those that like to play 100% through their games it's a nice feature so you can keep track of what you've already done. You don't get access to the Impossible levels until you beat all 10 levels on Hard. I've played through all 10 Easy levels and levels 8/9/10 on Hard so far. The Impossible levels might be different from the other since I don't have access to them but I'm guessing they just increase the amount of damage you take. On Easy bullets to 0.25 damage and on Hard they did 1.0 damage.



You've got a standard weapon to start with that shoots a steady stream of bullets in a single line. Powerups include homing missiles, rate of fire, damage, multiplier, speed and health increases. They all seem to disappear after you shoot enough or they may be on a timer I couldn't exactly tell.

Each level ends with a boss battle that you need to kill before you complete the level and they're all different so that adds some variety. There's also plenty of different enemies and patterns in the levels so each level is completely different from the others.

There's high scores but I'm not sure if they're global or not. I was the only one on the list but it's also possible nobody else was playing at the time.

I have a couple minor complaints that could've improved my experience. I found it a little hard to be accurate with the weapons, probably because the bullets you shoot are pretty small. The controls also felt like they could've been tighter. Your ship will always be moving slightly even if you aren't moving him around which I found annoying because I couldn't sit still and shoot if I wanted to.

If you have a $1 or 80 MSP laying around and are a fan of shooters I'd recommend checking out the trial and buy it if it entices you.

Rating - 8/10