X-Out: Resurfaced Review

X-Out: Resurfaced is a remaster of X-Out, a side scrolling shoot’em up, which first released in 1989 for the good old Commodore 64 follow by a release on Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC a year later. The game has a pretty simplistic story where a nameless fighter aboard his submarine needs to stop an alien invasion brewing up underwater.

As mentioned, X-Out: Resurfaced is a horizontal shoot’em up, or shmup, where players need to move like a butterfly and sting like a bee as you navigate treacherous levels filled with obstacles, enemies and their projectiles coming from everywhere. Unlike other games in the genre, you at least have a health bar to stave off death for a while.

That being said, riding into the environment, it’s one hit death. Oh and there’s no continue. You die? Your butt is thrown back to the main menu. What makes X-Out: Resurfaced different from other shmups is that when booting the game, or in between levels, you’re given an amount of cash to pimp up your submarine or buy a second submarine (which basically acts as an extra life).

There’s a decent selection of weaponry to choose from in the shop. If you don’t feel like mix and matching yourself, there’s a pre-fabricator that’ll give you pre-configured ships to take into battle. But if you’re looking for a more tailored experience is that it gives players the opportunity to try a decent variety of combination to find one that works for you.

The development team did a decent job bringing a 1989 game up to date with X-Out: Resurfaced. The underwater environments is a nice change of pace for the typical shmup games. The underwater environments are dark and drab; not much diversity in terms of color palette. The soundtrack is a space-y score that somehow reminded me of the original Metroid. But fair warning, it’s muffled out due to the constant bullet noise coming from your ship.

While the developer did a remarkable job with the visuals, there are still issues. Some obstacles are difficult to distinguish from the environments. Some pillars for example look to be in the background but in reality they are in the foreground and in your way. I lost count on how many times I died because of this. Additionally, while shmups are known for their difficulty, X-Out: Resurfaced is one of the most unforgiving ones. Lack of continues or extra lives ensures a lot of repetition.

The other big nuisance here is the lack of quality of life improvements. No saves, no continues, no extra life. Not everyone has the time and patience to restart a game continously after dying. There seems to be some minor detection issues; for example I first accidentally rode into a boss and instantly died. Yet the next time, I nudged it directly and only lost health. Weird. Also, because since some weapons require charge time, you can’t simply hold the fire button so you’ll have to button mash your way through the end.

For a remaster of a 30+ year old game, the developer did a surprisingly good job with X-Out: Resurfaced. The controls and overall gameplay is solid and holds up pretty well. Being able to customize one of the four submarines to tailor your playstyle is a nice twist. But it doesn’t make it any easier. Lack of continues and extra lives (unless you have enough to buy additional(s) subs) makes for a frustrating and repetitive experience as dying boots you back to the main menu. If you’re looking for a hard as nail shmup experience, this is one of the best. If you’re looking to dip your toes in the genre, this ain’t it.