Indie-a-Day (005/365): Pew Pew Pod

The xIndies feature "Indie-a-Day" will highlight and recommend a single Xbox Indie Game every day during 2011. Bad Egg Studios' Pew Pew Pod is another dollar twin-stick shooter. At first glance, Pew Pew Pod seems very similar to Geometry Wars. However, with the addition of multiplayer for all six modes of the game and the addition of some fun game mechanics, Pew Pew Pod provides enough of a new and quality gaming experience to make it into my collection. 


Pew Pew Pod has six game modes that can be played by up to four people each. The game modes all seem to revolve around the number three. In the Arcade Mode you have three lives and three minutes to rack up as many points as you can by killing the enemies. In Survival Mode the game starts out very similar but you are not rewarded for kills but for the time you stay alive. You have three minutes to collect as many waypoints as you can in Waypoint Mode and in Zones Mode, yes, three minutes again, to rack up your points by staying in zones that spawn for five seconds each. I found the most interesting mode to be the Think Fast Mode. In this mode you are given a direction like GREEN or DON'T MOVE and you receive points for following the direction. No penalty, however, follows disobeying the order. The last mode is Versus where you destroy your friends and the person with the highest score at the end of three minutes wins. 


A cool addition to the gameplay found in the Geometry Wars series is that Pew Pew Pod has four selectable weapons. Each of these weapons are linked to a color, green, red, yellow, or blue. Your ship starts out shooting green, or with the Machine Gun Laser, and is a good, all around, rapid fire weapon. If you press the red or "a" button your ship will begin shooting the Shot Gun Laser that shoots a burst to clear out enemies. The yellow weapon, the Photon Torpedo, seems pretty useless so far, as it shoots slow and powerful. Finally, the Plasma Cannon, blue, is my favorite. The bullets bounce off the walls and you can just spam your enemy. Fun times. 


All in all, Pew Pew Pod does enough to differentiate itself from the standard Geo Wars series to make it an appealing purchase. Also, charging only 80 MSP for the game, Bad Egg Studios have set a great game at an irresistible price. You can check out the demo or purchase the full game here. Watch the well-made trailer below for some great footage of the game. 





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