Contra-Hard – RIVE Review

When you talk about good games that have a punishing difficulty, for me only two games come to mind, the Soul series and Contra. For me, Contra is the epitome of a good game that punishes you at every turn, but forces you to become better then what they throw at you. Even with 30 lives you force yourself through the continues, starting levels over again just to be better.

I haven’t felt that way about a game difficult game for a while, but then comes RIVE, a 2D platformer shooter that is punishingly difficult but you never get angry at it. You force yourself to become better, dodging bullets, lasers, drones and more until you have become a beast, and then still get your ass kicked!

Players are thrown into the role of a pilot of a Spider Tank, equipped with a 4th-wall breaking – Side Scrolling game view, who finds a high density metal structure. While investigating, the tank is damaged but the structure is found to be an abandoned space station being operated by a homicidal drone who activates every defence measures you can think of.

Players are warped around through different levels of the ship, in an an attempt to leave the station. With some locations locked down, levels are sometimes back-tracked until upgrades are found that will allow players to hack, or blast their way through difficult situations.

At it’s core, RIVE is a 360-degree shooter with platforming elements. In areas with gravity enabled, they are forced to dodge oncoming attacks while blasting apart everything the ship drone sends at you, something that is easier said then done. While armour and a variety of special weapons help to take down opponents, it is every easy to die at any minute and it would be your own fault. The game finds a perfect way to avoid being cheap by forcing the player to be good it, seeing patterns and finding the right reaction time to save you from certain death.

Just when you think you have the game figured out, it throws a curve ball at you, from levels on a fast moving bullet-train, to levels with no gravity and a gun that is locked in place that is reminiscent of space shooters like R-Type. The game isn’t afraid to show the developers love for video games with 4th wall breaking banter and situations.

While there isn’t much for a story here that hasn’t been done before. In a way, the story is a similar tale to Portal; with a crazed AI not wanting the human to leave and instead want to test various Defence Mechanics as possible to see if it can kill it is a good enough reason to push forward to see to the end. Plus the banter between the AI and the player is witty and offers some great moments.

RIVE also has some great audio tracks that keeps you pumped in the action, only to be overshadowed by the multiple explosions thanks to the number of enemies being thrown at you that are always satisfying to hear.

RIVE is a game that I cannot recommend enough, it’s fast pace, hard as hell and addicting. Those enjoying RIVE will easily be back for more punishment and to get their names on the top of the leaderboard.