Review by: Danielle Riendeau

Ion Assault is one meaty, pretty little shoot-em-up, inspired by the clashing philosophies behind Asteroids and of course, Geometry Wars, the granddaddy of great XBLA titles.

You play as a little spaceship, sucking space gas in and shooting out a powerful ion blast. Your goal: to demolish all of the asteroids on the playing field, and to ramp up your score by racking up combo “kills” while exterminating the bizarre space-bugs that always want to get in your way. It’s a twin-stick shooter, with ship control on the left thumb and cannon control on the right, and the challenge ramps up quickly, requiring quick reflexes and a penchant for getting into “the zone”, such as it is.

In true shooter form, there are a wide variety of power-ups at your disposal, things like shields or “increased gravity fields” that allow you to suck in massive amounts of ions with which to cause onscreen chaos. The play system is pretty elegant – simple yet deep – as you’ll quickly find that your laser blasts bounce off of the “walls” of the arena, making well-placed shots your very best friend, especially if you’re going for those score-multiplying combos.

There’s also a great deal of strategy involved in charging your shots and pacing yourself. The faster you attack those asteroids, the more enemies will appear, so you effectively get to control the difficulty by setting your own speed. It’s actually a fairly cool way of handling things, and makes the forbidding task of dealing with the onscreen craziness a bit gentler for newbies.

Visually speaking, the game is gorgeous and chaotic. The particle rendering engine that developer Coreplay has in place here is truly fantastic, with each little bit of space gas, ion blast and space debris flowing and flying apart with incredible detail. Sure, things do get a bit overwhelming (especially on later stages), but it’s all so beautiful in a cosmic fireworks sort of way. It reminded me a great deal of Space Invaders Extreme – not for its gameplay, but in the way that such an arcadey old-school concept can be made relevant – and funky - all over again.

However, this puppy would be half the game it is without its multiplayer modes, including the very cool co-op play. As always, it’s much more fun to mess with your friend’s space debris than your own, and the competitive mode changes the game almost entirely, creating a sort of “base battle” in which you attack your buddies’ home fronts. There’s no co-op online, which is a bummer, but it’s worth checking out if you have a real-life gamer friend sitting on your couch.