Galax-E-Mail Xbox 360 XNA Game Review

Inspired by Arcade Classics, Galax-E-Mail is a Great Game for Cheap

Apr 3, 2009

Since XNA's conception, the service has gone largely unnoticed. A shame, since Galax-E-Mail offers great fun for a reasonable price.

Inspired by old-school, nostalgic arcade games, fans of games like Galaga, Asteroids, and Geometry Wars will love the basic gameplay and challenge offered by Galax-E-Mail.

The game objective to Galax-E-Mail is to deliver the e-mail message displayed at the beginning of the level, which typically gives hints and explanations to various aspects of the game, which, thankfully, along with the game's simple design, makes a tutorial unnecessary.

A wormhole opens up with a mail icon, which must be delivered through the next wormhole, which only opens up after all enemy bases are destroyed. Numerous enemy ships seek to prevent the player from delivering the mail by shooting at your ships and dropping mines.

And, on higher difficulties, other hazards present a clear and present danger, such as asteroids (which break apart when shot just like the game of the same name) and black holes which move around like a tornado, sucking up hazards and other ships into a violent death spin.

After each level, the player is prompted with a question about the game's difficulty, which can be answered with one of four options: "About Right," "Easy," "Super-Easy," and "Effortless." The difficulty will enhance significantly between levels depending on the chosen answer. Or, if the player feels comfortable at the current difficulty, choosing "about right" will keep the difficulty relatively the same.

At the beginning of every level, and typically after destroying an enemy base, a ship icon or two will appear. By running into an icon, another ship will join, controlled with AI.

The player can come under the control of a whole fleet of spacecraft by the end of a level. The ships follow the lead ship controlled by the player, but are also smart enough to attempt to avoid hazards by themselves. Flying through space with a fleet of ships is oddly satisfying, as they follow you and weave around not unlike a school of fish.

Additional ships will only fire after you hit something, meaning a player can't simply blindfire with 10+ ships for a victory.

If the player's lead ship explodes, the player will come under the control of one of the other ships. If all the ships run out, it's game over.

Besides the additional AI ships, the player has the ability to morph the ship into three different variations. One speeds through space quickly, with rapid-fire guns, but has weak armor and weak firepower. The opposite is a slow, hulking beast with heavy armor and a slow, but powerful, plasma gun of sorts. And, naturally, the third option is a mix between the two.

Based on simple gameplay elements with a graphic style similar to old-school shooters like Galaga, Galax-E-Mail creates a fun top-down arcade shooter-style experience.

Without a doubt, Galax-E-Mail is one of the best XNA games available for it's unique blend of space adventure, top-down shooter gameplay, and old-school nostalgic graphics.

Priced at a mere 200 MS Points (about $2.50), Galax-E-Mail is a steal and the perfect game to buy with leftover MS Points.

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The copyright of the article Galax-E-Mail Xbox 360 XNA Game Review in Action Games is owned by Bradley Kairis. Permission to republish Galax-E-Mail Xbox 360 XNA Game Review in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.