For a while we had games which followed the same pattern, nobody really went back to old highlights and we often got much of the same from ID @Xbox games. Now we have seen the re-emergence of local multiplayer without much success as far, Orbit is the latest of games which looks to take advantage of this rebirth.
In all honesty the local multiplayer has seemed to die an age ago, without much fuss, it seemed that the ramping bull which was online multiplayer removed the need for local a long time ago. Anyway here in 2015 it’s back and seemingly in a lot of ID @Xbox games none more so than Orbit, which combines the idea of deep space battles between friends with a fight against the environment.
The way orbit works is the players, maximum of 4, fight it out in a small circular spot in deep space, the centre contains a wormhole which creates a gravitational pull into the middle, which is certain death. Players must eliminate one another without falling to the wormhole. Battles are often bright, explosive affairs between players and 4bit Games have done a good job of using the environment to show off the impressive animations.
Orbit is made up of 3 game modes, Tournament, Mayhem and Forge. Tournament is round by round with players competing to earn medals, with the overall winner being the one with the most. Rounds consist of our conquering small areas within the circle, usually areas around small planets or the wormhole. Mayhem is an all-out scrap as players are given the freedom of their small ships to battle amongst each other for points. And forge is about creating your own game mode through a selection of options available in both Mayhem and Tournament. As well as Survival mode which simulates a small asteroid shower for players to manoeuvre their way through, the key being survival, obviously.
As well as using explosive colours, Orbit also makes use of very heavy base and high paced music to keep you enthralled but the game really has a very short time frame, the early instalments of the game is great fun but once the game starts to be played and played, the game is easy to master with the game not really providing much of a challenge.
But overall that is the down side, as it is with many a local multiplayer only game, the lack of options and replay ability will kill off any chance of this game being successful. That being said though, the spine and essentials of Orbit are fascinating, the environment works well and the gravity is a real wild card in this, it’s well thought out and applied making Orbit enjoyable and challenging at first.
