Retro raygun shooter They Came From Dimension X made me feel like I was in a '90s game ad
The demo for upcoming boomer shooter They Came From Dimension X(opens in new tab) is a blast from start to finish. Less than a minute in, I hooted so loud I startled my girlfriend from across the apartment when I stepped into the first room and started walking straight up a wall. The experience felt like it needed to be accompanied by that dude from the old Sega Saturn ads(opens in new tab) talking about the new millennium.
First spotted by Alpha Beta Gamer(opens in new tab), Dimension X immediately resembles Quake or Dusk with its chunky, lo-fi presentation. It sets itself apart aesthetically with a 1950s Forbidden Planet raygun look and eerie soundtrack(opens in new tab). Dimension X's official page explains its central mechanic well: «gravity is only as consistent as the ground your boots are stepping on.» You can't jump and magnetize to a wall, but any contiguous path can be followed in contravention of the rules of gravity, with sloped surfaces letting you seamlessly transition from the floor to the ceiling and back again.
A highlight set piece for me was a fight in a drum-shaped room against a gaggle of Dimension X's aggressive melee monsters, a Great Race of Yith-style flower-serpent-abomination. I was constantly backpedaling, blasting the guys with the dark laundry machine room tumbling around us illuminated by the projectiles of the game's ray gun.
The mechanical and aesthetic innovation immediately make Dimension X feel fresh and surprising, despite having retro inspirations and coming in the midst of a renaissance of classic shooters. It promises to turn the one-off level design experiments of other shooters like Dusk's fantastic Escher Labs level into a full game.
The wall-walking antics feel like a
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