Game Review: Arc Continuum KickStarter

Arc Continuum

When you think of time manipulation games, you think of TimeShift, Life is Strange, Dishonoured, Prince of Persia and of course, Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. Some games implement the mechanic well, others not so much.

I got contacted by Akimbo Creations to have a look at their version of a time manipulation game called Arc Continuum. Akimbo Creations are a Canadian based Indie developer that are based out of Vancouver and this is their take on this particular trope.

ARC Continuum is a third person action/adventure game set in an exciting new Sci-Fi world. Wield the power of the ARC, a device capable of manipulating time and the key to saving your planet from galactic conquest. ARC Continuum features single player story mode with the option of playing with alternate versions of yourself in multiplayer co-op.

They are currently on KickStarter – Started Monday 12th September and they are looking for $100,000 dollars *evil laugh* to make their vision become a reality.

I had a look at it last night and my initial thoughts are as follows:

Gameplay Video

Thoughts

The implementation of powers seems to done well, you can see how they could potentially be combined together to progress through the levels. In the press version, the powers available to me were:

Time Slow – When this strikes an enemy, they are covered with a blue forcefield which slows down their actions enough for you to finish them off with the shotgun or machine gun element of your ARC device.
Time Vortex – This was quite interesting when I figured out how to arm it. What it does is create a swirling vortex ball that sucks up everyone in its area of effect (including yourself). When the Vortex ends, it dumps the bodies on the floor. Quite cool effect. (I used this quite a lot especially when there are a bunch of enemies grouped together).
Blink – This is one of those powers that will enable a player to get to those high to reach places. From my brief play through, it does allow the option to jump off a cliff, or towards another ledge and then aim the power at the ledge and blink to that location. I’m sure better players than me will be able to do it with more finesse. The problem I had with this was that I was used to be able to pinpoint exactly where I wanted to go in other games. Here, the path is an arc so you have to position it carefully to make sure that you are not seen by the enemy.
Shotgun – Fires a shotgun blast from the arc device
Machine Gun – Rapid fire of thin bolts from the arc device.
Sniper – Clicking the Left Trigger changes the view to sniper mode where you can get that elusive head shot. Since, I’m more Splinter Cell than Call of Duty, I much prefer the slow approach.
Rewind – A cool feature that is useful in those ‘crap, I’ve made a terrible mistake’ is the use of the rewind functionality. If you fall off a cliff or run into bad guys and are overwhelmed, you can press a key to rewind time. What I want to know, or maybe didn’t notice is if you kill an enemy, rewind and get into a better position. Does that enemy stay dead? That’s the beauty of these type of games. The amount of deviousness that you can do if you plan carefully.

At first, it was confusing to know what each of the icons meant despite having the power wheel. Once I knew how to select the two powers I wanted for the quick access, it started to sink in. However, I think just a little text for the selection will help the player usability. Overall, I think the powers will make for some interesting combos and it’ll be good to see how other people play.

The music that I heard on the loading screen sounded so familiar that I wouldn’t be amiss if it was in the charts, it had that high quality feel to it.

I think this will do well and I hope that they make their project a reality. I have a feeling that certain elements need refining (in my case, it’s about selecting powers, using them to close down an enemy or transverse the landscape with ease without having to look at the controller – However, I think that’s more about me as a player than an element with the game). You also have to accept that I’m a Quality Assurance Engineer by trade so I’m going to have a bias and I’m always looking on how to make things better for the end user. Having a dialogue and a look at this early version is always interesting to me.

Look for my Let’s Play in the next couple of days!

Press Release

About Arc Continuum

ARC Continuum entered Steam Greenlight in September 2015 and was approved within a week. Since then we have made immense progress and fine-tuned the gameplay mechanics, the artwork and we are very excited as we move closer to release.

ARC Continuum will also be the first game to use our proprietary Fault Tolerant Distributed Networking System (P2P) that will revolutionize the multiplayer gaming industry with its real time cheat detection and massively reduced cost on server operators.

About Akimbo Creations

Akimbo Creations was founded in February 2015 by Behrouz Poutschi. Since then the studio has evolved into a power horse of talent and creativity. We have built a team of passionate individuals who are dedicated to pushing the boundaries of indie gaming and technology. The studio is nestled between the mountains of Vancouver, Canada.

At Akimbo Creations, we are constantly trying to innovate and push ourselves to deliver the highest quality indie games that set the industry benchmark.