If you are an old-time gamer or have tried out a few old games from the time when games could fit into a floppy disk and you had to input “A:run something.exe” on the DOS based PCs then Teslapunk will bring you some good old memories.
Teslapunk brings the classic 2D spaceship shoot-em-up arcade style to Xbox One, and you can expect everything that has made these kind of games famous back in the 90’s such as fast-paced gameplay, enemies flying from everywhere and filling up the screen with their shoots.
Your mission is quite simple, help Nikola Tesla defend Earth against the invasion lead by Emperor Zangórax, who’s a well-known Martian DJ by night and a ruthless Invader by day. To do that you control a spaceship armed with 2 different weapons, one is called “Spread Shot”, very useful against the small and weaker enemies, and the “Laser Shot” perfect for those tougher and bigger ships.
Besides this 2 weapons, you also have a “super weapon” called “Voltage Burst” that allows you to cancel and wipe clean the screen of all the shots fired by the enemy ships. This feature will also serve to increase the multiplier, which may seem a cool thing, but it comes with a little side effect, the difficulty will be raised, so think carefully before using it.
The game is divided in 2 modes, the Arcade mode and the Survival mode. In the Arcade mode, you will battle through 6 levels each one fill with enemies of all kind and each one with his own boss battle at the end. For each level you beat the harder the thing will be, so don’t be disappointed by replaying some levels over and over again.
In Survival mode the objective is to see how far you can go without being killed by the enemy ships that fight in your direction. For that, you will have to dodge and destroy them but thing aren’t so easy because the more you progress the harder the enemies will be to destroy. To help you with that there are a bunch of updates that you can buy for you ship, and this updates can be bought using the coins your enemies left behind when you destroy them, besides that you can also gather with some power-ups drops from time to time, to help you getting even further.
Teslapunk also has a feature that allow the game to get some longevity, especially in the Arcade mode, which is the presence of 33 missions, or challenges, that can only be completed by replaying the Arcade mode over and over to meet the requirements to fulfil them.
Like every shoot-em-up from the 90s, and a lot other game genres from that time, every time you lose all you lives you will have to replay the game from the start. Yes, that’s right, the game does not feature any type of checkpoint system, and yes even without that the game is possible to finish in one run. The secret to that? Well be patience and start mastering your fast-reaction techniques in order to help Tesla save Earth from being destroyed by Emperor Zangórax and his Martians.
With a cyberpunk spaceship look mixed with some photos and blueprints of tech-industrial pieces for the 20th century, Teslapunk has a unique retro-mixed art-style and that is definitely a plus to this game. The soundtrack is also very well adapted to the game genre, giving another feature that may bring some nostalgia to “old-school” gamers.
The game also comes with a comic side of this Martian invasion. On the right side of the screen, there’s a “small” tv screen that keeps playing some funny messages from the one and only Emperor Zangórax. This can be missed in the first few times you play the game, which will probably happen due to the fact that you will probably be more focused on destroying and avoiding the enemy fire. But after a few runs (and believe me that you will replay some levels lots of times) you will eventually feel more comfortable with each enemy waves and you will start being able to see more of the Emperor’s humorous quotes and jokes that he makes while you try to defeat him and his invasion.
In summary, Teslapunk is a game that everyone should play. Doesn’t matter if you are an “old-school” 2D shoot-em-up gamer or if you are new to the genre. It’s guaranteed that you will be entertained for hours trying to obliterate Zangórax and his Martian followers. I loved everything about it. It reminded me of Tyrian, one of my all time favorite titles, just go for it. The only drawback is the checkpoint system but you can overcome that challenge with practice.
João is a games journalist, Senior Editor at XDA Developers. They contributed 156 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: previously reported for Neowin before joining XDA Developers in 2021, where he leads coverage of Windows, Microsoft, and hardware.