When the fate of the world rests in your hands, will you be a professional or a rebel assassin?
Price: Free • $5.99/£3.99 IAP to unlock story
Size: 774 MB
Version: 1.1
Developer: Giant Spacekat
There are points where it feels like Revolution 60’s sidled in from another universe. The reality it depicts is a kind of faux-’60s future that never came to be — all lurid colours, spiky spaceships, funky laser guns, and special agents in outfits that might even make Spock raise an eyebrow. But although this sci-fi romp has the visuals of a cartoon Charlie’s Angels in space, there’s a much more modern undercurrent of attitude, gaming smarts, and female empowerment running throughout. Purely on the basis that its women are actual people (versus cyphers to propel a male lead), Revolution 60 deserves a look; fortunately, though, the game has a lot more going for it than striking a blow for equality.
Combat is grid-based, akin to clockwork choreography.
The plot centers around an American orbital space station that’s blundered out of position and is now lurking over China, threatening to dump a payload of deadly weapons and spark a nuclear war. Your team of four is tasked with nullifying the situation, but it soon becomes apparent all is not what it seems, and a greater game is afoot — one with potentially deadly consequences for the future of the world and also the quartet of operatives.
Holiday guide
Gameplay primarily involves guiding assassin Holiday through the broadly linear story in one of four ways: interaction with other agents, quick time events, combat, and exploration. Interaction with agents is mostly dialogue based, which is heavy on exposition, thick with sass, and enables you to directly side with one of two other main characters, impacting on your chances in specific scenarios later in the game.
Exploration and combat are both quite simple. The former feels a bit superfluous, because the paths you can take are all on rails, and the branches from the main track have little effect on the story and don’t reveal a great deal. Combat, though, is a lot of fun, taking a grid-based approach to one-on-one battles. You face-off against an enemy goon and must chain moves and shots together to kill them before they have a chance to kill you.
Ouch.
Like clockwork
It all feels very clockwork in nature, and the enemy attacks are signposted and intentionally predictable, enabling you to respond accordingly. The result is akin to block-and-parry fighters of old combined with dancing. Finally, quick time events take the form of basic timed dexterity tests (dragging circles or drawing lines) that enable you to perform actions or complete super-moves during combat. Sometimes they echo what you see on screen, but often they feel a bit arbitrary. Oddly, though, it can be surprisingly tense drawing a circle a few times to hack a computer when your team’s under fire.
Quick time events determine success in combat super moves.
The gameplay styles don’t gel perfectly, and there are times when Revolution 60 drags, notably when Holiday’s wandering around space-station corridors. However, quieter moments do make the more exciting sections stand out; and on the whole, the story itself is strong enough to warrant paying the single IAP to unlock the entire game, which takes three-to-four hours to reach its explosive conclusion.
Perhaps most importantly, this is a very accessible game that should appeal to an audience previously intimidated by complex videogame adventures. On its beginner level, any remotely competent player should make it through to the end, but the tougher difficulties provide more of a challenge for seasoned gamers. In all cases, anyone up for a bright and sparky sci-fi adventure should find plenty to like here.