Orbiz Early-Access Review

Do you guys remember those good old days? When we had our Atari or Nintendo consoles and we had the chance to play with our friends, our joysticks in our hands? Remember those good old times when you played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with a friend and enjoy being a real team? Well you don’t have to push your memory so hard mates. Because Orbiz will make you feel the same way you felt years ago.

Basically, Orbiz is a rogue-like local co-operative multiplayer game with retro music and artwork made by Anoman Studio. It tells a story about 4 teenagers who try to kill the zombies on sphere like, randomly generated maps. You and your friends choose one character out of 4 unique ones. Each character has a bonus like carrying more ammo or dealing more damage. According to your choice, your play style differs and game becomes more and more interesting.

The main objective is to kill zombies and other bosses or boss-like creatures to be able to reach spawn points and destroy them to find the portal to the next level.

“The story started when Leo (one of 4 members of this group) bring his new book titled Orbiz when his other three friend gathered in cafeteria. Suddenly he opened the book and something unusual happened. They threw into a strange small planet world and zombies came out. Can they go back to their home after thrown into a dimension inhibited by zombies ?“. The developers say and question our capability of smashing zombie heads… But the important part is not the story. It is the action!

Before we start…

Before we start talking about the game, I have three important warnings:

First of all, if you don’t have a gamepad, go get one before you start playing. Don’t even think that you’re better than everybody else and you don’t listen to anybody because you’re your own boss and nobody tells you what to do… Just go buy a gamepad. Why? Simple… Because this game is almost impossible to have fun with keyboard and mouse. Yes it is possible to play it, but it is not as enjoyable as it is with a gamepad. Let me explain like this. If there were countries called Republic of Mouse and United States of Keyboard, this game would be the main reason of a war between them. This game makes them realize their differences, and forces them to work separately. Long story short, this game is much MUCH better with a gamepad. Keyboard and mouse options will be added to the game we hope, since it is still in early-access.

Secondly, and this is the hard part unfortunately, get 3 friends. No, your Batman figurines don’t count, sorry. You need real ones. Like those who have hands and can move their fingers to push the buttons of a gamepad. I don’t know how and where to find them. But try it. If you have luck and you find a couple of them, optionally you can ask them to bring their own gamepads. If they don’t have any, go and buy it for them, don’t be cheap.

Lastly, and this is the easy part, go ahead and buy the game. Now you are ready to invite your friends to your place to smash some zombie heads!

Let’s play a console game only made for PC!

Ok, I’m done with joking around. Let’s talk about some serious business. Orbiz is a fun game. Simple as that. Yes it has its flaws. Yes, it has many things which needs to be improved. But if you keep in mind that this game is on alpha-early-access period, you’ll see that it is pretty promising.

The gameplay is simple. You kill zombies, monsters, beasts, bosses and smash spawners to be able to get to the other level. The best part about it is the action aspect of the game. You can easily lose yourself in the action. Especially if you have cool friends with you.*sniff* Ehm, anyways.

Maps are randomly generated. So, you will have a different experience as you progress in the game and/or start a new one. This makes Orbiz, along with the coop aspect, a infinitely re-playable game.

Overall, Orbiz has many positive aspects like the retro 80’s music, unique artwork and nostalgic feeling it gives. And it’s so much fun to play! The action is real and the violence is satisfying enough. Not much, not less. Just the way it was supposed to be.

Here comes the “But!”

But! As it is on early-access and there are many incomplete features, Orbiz has many other negative sides. I will try to focus on the core gameplay issues and other important, basic aspects of the game instead of whining about the bugs or other soon to be patched things.

First of all, as much as I like the gamepad play, there should be a better way to control characters on keyboard and mouse. It is really painful. Aiming is too hard and inconsistent. With a couple of simple tweaks, this will be a good game for gamepad haters too.

Second, sound effects are, unfortunately, pretty bad. Even with a good headset, you can hear a buzzing sound when you hit a couple of enemies at the same time. And the sound effects can get chaotic easily. Which is the same issue for the graphics. Yes, it is a simple game with simple graphics but even if it’s the case, you can easily lose control over the game just because of the chaos happening on the screen.

Lastly, I would like to point out that the maps are pretty small. Bigger maps would be much better. But, I’m pretty sure that the devs already know these issues and they will fix them in no time.

All in all, the game is promising. That’s for sure. There is a jewel sleeping underneath the early-access version. And it will get better and better, hopefully… But no matter what, if you like coop action games and if you don’t care about the graphics as long as you have fun, you will love this game. Go ahead and give it a try if you are curious. It is available on Steam on early-access. And for other buying options, you can check the official website. And here is a video of the game:

Positive

• Retro graphics and music
• Simple controls with a gamepad and simple objectives
• So much fun for a simple game
• A good way to be both social and asocial at the same time

Negative

• Sound effects and graphics can be chaotic really easily and they can be disturbing
• Playing with a keyboard and a mouse is almost not an option as it is too hard and not fun at all
• A couple of bugs and incomplete features…well, because “early-access”
• Can become an addiction for you and your friends

Orbiz was reviewed using a Steam key provided by the publisher.