Earlier this week, Edible Entertainment unleashed what they call an, “INSANE BLOOD DRENCHED ZOMBIE SHOOTER” among the obviously unsuspecting public. Never one to pass up an opportunity to take part in a nihilistic shooting rampage, 400 Microsoft Points sounded like a fair price of admission so I took up the offer at four in the morning with Mr. Sandman practically ready to knock me out. The good news is, I found Veks and Silence to be worth the sleep deprivation.

Veks and Silence is essentially a 2D shooter and platformer and rarely deviates from that description during the entire game. Your goal is to guide Silence—the dude with a bag on his head--from one end of the level, to the other end, and in between you will find yourself blasting the utter crap out of everything that isn't you. It borrows the pacing and action from the Metal Slug series in which swarms of enemies will attack you from above, below, and behind you, as you move Silence across the level. There isn't anything done here that isn't canon already in 2D shooter gameplay, but there isn't much here that is poorly implemented, not to mention that the formula worked back then, and it sure as hell works now here.



Silence comes armed with 4 weapons mapped to your D-pad, a pistol, a shotgun, a chaingun, and bolt action sniper rifle. Each weapon is intended to be balanced to affect Silence's mobility and firepower in different ways to encourage the player to rely on all of the arsenal for various situations. For instance, the default pistol is weak, but Silence is the most mobile when he has it equipped, allowing him to move faster and jump higher. In contrast, the sniper rifle is a one hit kill for most enemies, but it is difficult to fine aim and it slows down Silence considerably. Do note that I said each weapon is “intended” to balance the arsenal but unfortunately this is one of the first faults I noticed with the game. Those two guns I just mentioned--the pistol and the sniper rifle--are really the only guns you'll find yourself using. Swapping between the pistol and sniper rifle is really the best combination as the game never presents any situation requiring the shotgun and the chaingun to be effective. The chaingun is too heavy to let you jump at all, and the shotgun makes you nearly just as immobile, but with a rather redundant spreadshot. If the folks at Edible did some more gun and gameplay tweaking to promote more weapon switching, the execution would have come off a lot more polished. Silence also carries an infinite supply of bombs with him, serving the purpose as grenades. They came in handy on occasion and are even required to defeat the first boss in the game.



While causing massive amounts of devastation with your limited arsenal, the game counts up your kill streaks and applies your score towards a rage token. Once you acquire at least one rage token, you can go into rage mode. Here, the screen turns red making Silence invulnerable and his weapons do more damage. Personally, I felt that rage mode lasts a little too long and is a little too easy to acquire; because of that, I was able to sort of plow through almost half a level on just one rage token on occasion. Still, there are definitely some instances where rage mode makes life better for you in the latter stages in the game. The game gets challenging towards the end and requires either good reflexes or rage mode to progress.

So as a whole, that's really what Veks is bringing to the table here While you're playing, it's certainly easy to notice the lack of polish on certain aspects of the gameplay but it's never detrimental to your enjoyment. The game still manages to provide some frantic shooting and platforming in a challenging way. There is rarely a moment where you don't find yourself bombarded with lasers or surrounded by zombies and killer robots where one ounce of contact costs you a life. The shooting mechanics themselves work really well for what they are, providing you with some gory results as you take down your undead foes. Nothing groundbreaking here, and if I were to end this review here I would merely recommend it to shooter buffs looking to kill some time and leave it at that.

But what takes Veks and Silence from being a serviceable shooter to something much more comes from the game's presentation. Graphically, Veks isn't amazing, but the art style and attention to detail in design is certainly dense and grand in scope. Levels are large in the sense that they are packed with background animations and artistic elements that draw your attention from the main game in a good way. There's actually billboards in the city that are humorous, factories feel like living breathing mechanical beasts with enormous machinery plugging away in the background, and one level has you plowing through a haunted house that really comes off as a derelict crackhouse. Some elements repeat themselves a bit, but overall I think everyone will be impressed the design of the game universe which cannot be said for the game's minimal story. Normally a game like this shouldn't rely on some kind of driving narrative to keep you focused, but nothing very relevant is ever really told in regards to Silence and his motives to save the world and find his missing partner Veks. The slideshow still images are beautiful to look at in between level loading, but they don't really add anything of substance besides a quick glimpse of where you're going next.



Veks and Silence is probably one of the better titles to hit XBLA's Indie platform in any recent amount of time. A lot of what holds the game back from being total and utter greatness is really just some lack of polish in the gameplay mechanics and story. It's still a lot of fun to play through the game's thirteen levels and it really starts to pick up about halfway through the game. By completing the game, you also unlock survival versions of the game's levels which are a fun diversion and add some worthwhile content if you're interested in beating your own high scores. For the asking price of 400 points, there's really no excuse to give it a go if you like shooters from your Genesis days. This is a decent first effort with a lot of potential to be a full fledged Live Arcade series in the future so show some support.

Oh and the final boss shoots a school bus full of screaming children at you. If that thought doesn't make you smile than maybe I am a little messed up.

3.5/5