Our review of X-Out: Resurfaced, developed by Kritzelkratz 3000 (original by Rainbow Arts). Available now for Steam/Deck (reviewed), Windows, PS5, Xbox X/S, Xbox One, Switch.
WHAT IS IT?
A loving – and very specific – remake of an obscure underwater shmup from the late ’80s / early ’90s.
IS IT GOOD?
It’s fun enough for what it is, though it can be unexpectedly tough.
WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?
Harcore shmuppers. Jaws fans.
WE ALL LIVE
Was a time, shmups – that’s shoot ‘em ups – were a dime a dozen. You couldn’t turn a corner at the arcade, or rummage through your dad’s stack of Amiga floppy disks, without encountering an R-Type or a Gradius or a Xevious or a Darius or any one of a thousand other titles. Some of these – the ones I just mentioned – were great. Others were merely good, or bad, or very, very terrible.
Shmups may have largely fallen out of fashion – though their influence is still seen in games like Returnal – but there’s a very specific subset of us gaming dorks who keep the Shmup flame alive. We’re out here with our G-Darius reboots and curated Steam wishlists, whiling away the hours taking down thousands of flying little robots and aliens and various other monstrosities.
The Amiga/Commodore release X-Out is a hell of a deep cut for even the most hardcore of us shmuppers. Released in 1989 for the Commodore 64 (1990 for the Amiga port), it’s little remembered today and honestly would probably have gone unnoticed by your resident Guardian shmupper if not for its salient feature: underwater combat.
That’s right: standing out amongst a sea of retro re-releases, X-Out: Resurfaced is a shmup set entirely underwater, pitting you against a veritable menagerie of aquatic foes.
IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE
X-Out: Resurfaced is a lightly retouched retro remake, in that it still looks like a heavily-pixelated 80s game, but remastered to widescreen with smoother graphics and movement. It looks, in other words, like the way you remember your Amiga 500 looking, but which in actual fact was never as crisp as this.
As mentioned, X-Out’s main selling point is its aquatic theme. Unlike so many other shmups, which are usually set in outer-space (or, in the case of Contra/Metal Slug, in the guerrilla-populated jungles of an unspecified dictatorship), this one puts players in control of a cute little submarine, pew-pewing its way through eight levels of underwater challenge.
Amusingly, you get to build your sub yourself, customizing its loadout right down to where you place your various weapons/equipment. X-Out represents a very early example of ship customization in the genre, and it’s fun to experiment with different weapons/setups even today.
The level design is, unsurprisingly, excellent, rendering moody underwater settings – like a sunken city – in fine pixelated details. The enemy design is pretty good, though I was disappointed to discover it still favours the mechanical/spaceship-style foes common to other shmups, rather than outwardly biological designs. While there are far fewer robot alien space sharks than I would have liked, I still found myself enjoying my time in X-Out’s brilliantly imagined settings.
A YELLOW SUBMARINE
New features – like a two-player co-op mode and a new “mirror mode” challenge – sweeten the deal for returning(?) players, though even without those additions I’d recommend X-Out for anyone interested in the genre. It’s especially good on the Steam Deck (or Switch, for that matter), whose portability aligns nicely with the short and sweet levels available here.
The sight of a rocket-launching octopus is worth the price of admission alone.
***
Final score: 8/10 robo-cephalopods.
Visit the official website for X-Out: Remastered here.
