A cool shooter with an even cooler soundtrack, Bullet Candy Perfect resembles the renowned top-down shooter Geometry Wars, only with better graphics. Since you play to the rhythm of the beat, the techno music really sucks you in, and that synchronicity can be helpful when going for a perfect run.
You pilot your tiny ship around the space levels, zapping laser-firing enemy ships, clumps of gold rings, and some menacing green orb-like things that follow you around. In some stages, you’ll become so surrounded by the green orbs that you only have two choices: Let them kill you, or commit suicide. As a strategic option, committing suicide results in the loss of two lives, but you get to keep all your perks and power-ups. So if you find yourself trapped but have lots of lives left, it’s in your best interest to right-click to be reborn to fight another day.
Everybody dance now! While shooting other ships, of course.
You gain perks by picking up spinning objects that look dangerous, but they’re actually power-ups. Rounder objects resembling planets boost your laser, while others allow you to become invincible for one round, fire triple-shot ammo, pick up an extra life, and rack up bonus points. The fluid controls have you using the normal WASD keys to move your ship around and the mouse to aim and fire.
We like the game’s progress bar, which tracks your achievements, high scores, average score, highest level you’ve reached, the amount of games played, play time, and your rank. You can also look at high scores online and compare them to others around the world. Even better, though, is the Radiohead-style “pay what you like” price: Developer Charlie’s Games is selling Bullet Candy Perfect for whatever you think is fair, starting at a minimum of $1. Even with a 15-level free trial, the tip-cup business model is a fun way to support indie developers.
Not as fun? The lack of a sensitivity adjustment in the game. Mouse control felt twitchy compared to other arcade shooters we’ve played, and having to going all the way to System Preferences to change the mouse sensitivity was just plain annoying. But when we played with a Logitech G5 mouse with onboard sensitivity adjustment, we got much better results. On the navigation side of things, the only way to maneuver through menus is the mouse buttons, which can get annoying--the ability to do menu stuff with the keyboard would’ve been helpful. Also, the over-the-top graphics reminded us of a bad acid trip and gave us a headache after playing for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. Still, people who love arcade shooters should feel right at home.
Trippy graphics. Techno soundtrack. Pay what you like. Universal binary.
Trippy graphics!!! Oversensitive mouse controls.
