Analysis of I, AI – The fight for our freedom is in the stars

What would you do if you were a self-aware artificial intelligence and submitted to humans?

We haven’t seen a big vertical scroll shooter (oh, that Gradius …), but maybe the title we bring you today, “Me, AI” developed by the Sometimes you study Russian and published by Satur entertainment, is up to the standards set by other big names like Sine More or Velocity 2X.

in this “I, AI”, we will control a self-aware artificial intelligence trapped in a space station. Our mission will be to escape from this “prison” and set course for Stargate (the name will sound familiar to fans of a certain ’90s series), where we can finally begin to “live” on a distant planet. In total, the title has about 20 levels, filled with hundreds of enemies. We are likely to spend the first or second level Not too much trouble, but as the number of enemies multiplies, our weak weapons and shields won’t last long in later levels.

Luckily every enemy we defeat will drop a small blue sphere, which can be used to improve our ship. This is where “I, AI” really starts to shine, since progression allows us to improve our main weapon up to level 10, increasing the value with each improvement. In addition to that, we may want to improve our shields and the special lightning attack. We will also have a plasma cannon and rockets that we can shoot with our primary weapon. Along with this we can add a ray cannon, energy bomb and floating mines. Finally, we have special attacks like an energy shield that will temporarily deflect projectiles when we’re trapped in a corner of the screen.

In addition to the wide choice of improvements, we find that the difficulty of the title is fairly well balanced. In the mode Ordinary you’ll end up repeating missions to stock up on upgrades as things get tricky, especially Easy enemies fall more frequently which means you will need a little less firepower to progress and finally the mode Hard is for masochists who want to take the highest level of punishment, where even the highest level weapons will take seconds to take down enemies. It is without a doubt a very well balanced difficulty system and It works well. In my case, although I managed to get to the middle of the game without too much trouble in Normal mode, soon I got stuck on a level it required several improvements to overcome it.

The nature of “repetition” and that there is only 20 levels They might not be to everyone’s taste, but depending on how you approach the game, it will give you a quite different experience. For example, go more defensive you will see enemies fill the screen as you shoot towards us, testing your agility and skillsplaying everything to attack improvements makes things a bit easier as you can take out enemies before they start filling up the shooting screen. One of game highlights are undoubtedly the battles against final patterns (There are about 12 in total), in which we have to show all our skill and ability to achieve victory.

It is likely that this “I, AI” it lasts until the second or third night of the match. However, you can expect a few hours of gameplay while you rehearse the missions to get upgrades available to be able to continue. However, it is true that this repetition of certain missions does not get too maddening considering how much fun you will have with the game. And most importantly, there is always a sense of progression, which many games are unable to achieve.

Graphically, it’s tied with what you would expect from a game of this nature, with the galaxy background full of nebulae and bright stars, space stations, etc. Most of the time we will have no problem seeing the enemies, whether they are mobile ships or turrets, but although most fire a distinctive orange ball towards us, some pictures of light blue, which look too much like our own fire and the XP orbs scattering the screen, will give us a bit of a mess. All in all, everything is superb.

audio That’s generally fine, but it’s not a section we’ll be remembered for its postings. The music does its job, with several pieces in the line of legendary games like Gradius.

Given the low selling price, this “I, AI” It’s an easily recommended title for fans of the genre and those who like to try out all kinds of genres.