It has been over 4 months since the launch of Sony’s newest console, the Playstation 4. On that day, November 15, Playstation Plus subscribers were treated with an awesome free game on launch day, Resogun. To this day, the game is still available on the Instant Game Collection. If you have not picked it up by now, or if you have not gotten far in it, then I recommend getting into it right away. It is a superb game with wonderful gameplay mechanics and is just overall a great experience.
In this article, I will be focusing on providing beginner and intermediate players with tips on how to work their way to two things, completing the game on the harder difficulties and earning the platinum. For those advanced players who have completed the game and now want to boost their high scores, look for the red text for more advanced tips and tricks.
Choosing a Ship
First off, this is a very opinionated topic. I have no reason to believe that there is the perfect ship for everybody, a lot of it depends on your style. Because of this, most guides will recommend that you just play around with the ships and pick the one you like the most. I respect this approach and I do agree to it to some extent; however, I do think that there are defined benefits to each of these ships, so I recommend a plan of going from easiest to hardest.
In the picture above, the ships essentially go from easiest to hardest from left to right. It is easier to pick up Nemesis and be successful quickly than it is with Phobos. Phobos has great style for advanced players, though. It is important that you know that there are more differences that just the stats between these ships. Nemesis shoots off a ton of homing missiles in all directions, as well as his standard shot. Phobos only shoots a few bonus shots that barely spread, but his simple cannon is way more powerful and shoots much longer distances.
Also, some keepers require you to kill them in a specific order if you want to save the human. Nemesis’ homing missiles will cause a lot of frustration with this, as they like to home in on the wrong people and kill them before your cannon kills the right guy.
With this in mind I recommend progressing from the easiest ship to the hardest by playing through the difficulties in the following order:
- Rookie: Nemesis
- Experienced: Ferox
- Veteran/Master: Phobos
Ferox is a very balanced ship and it is not necessary to use him at all. When I played the first time, I used Nemesis until Veteran then switched to Phobos. If you do not think you need the slower learning curve, then feel free to jump into Phobos earlier.
For players looking for high scores, especially, I would definitely recommend Phobos. The longer range of his cannon makes it much easier to keep your multiplier going.
Your Number One Weapon Is Your Boost
This may sound weird, how could your number one weapon be your boost? That’s not even a weapon. When you use your boost, you are completely invincible. Also, every person you run into along the way dies. Sounds like a pretty good way to escape dangerous situations. As soon as you know you are screwed, or just do not feel comfortable, boost out of the situation and try to take as many guys along the way as possible. I recommend using the boost in short bursts, because it will only drain as much of the boost as you use. Your boost has to fill back up to a certain amount before you can use it again, so only use what you need and it will be ready again sooner.
Now that you can utilize your boost, it gets even better! On top of being invincible, the developers have added a little trick to make sure you do not die from ending your boost at an enemy. When you finish boosting, a small explosion emits from your ship, killing all enemies in the immediate area. To take advantage of this always try and end your boost in a large cluster of enemies.
Do not forget to watch the HUD, your boost’s charge meter is displayed as an arc right above your ship. So keep an eye on how much you are using.
“Overdrive Charged”
This is the one mistake that I constantly made. Overdrive seems like this great powerhorse safety net that you can store for those dangerous situations. Do not make this assumption, like I did. When you hear that message out of your controller, hit that overdrive right away. It will thin out the ranks, helping you avoid ever being in that awkward situation, but, more importantly, it will mean you get your next overdrive faster.
Now, do not take what I said too far though. If there are not any enemies around, do not use it just because you can. Save it until there is a decent amount of enemies, but use it as soon as that moment comes.
Watch Your Ship
One of the easiest mistakes to make in this game is to focus on the enemies.
Your eyes will constantly try and gravitate towards your targets, but you need to try and fight that urge. You obviously need to pay attention to your enemies, how else would you kill them? It is more important, however, that you know what is going on around you.
Too often does it happen that you are watching the enemy, absolutely slaughtering a wall of the bastards, and the next thing you know, you’re dead. “What the hell just happened?! I was mowing them down!” Well, the thing you missed is that one insignificant bullet coming from the easy enemy on the other side of you. So do not lose focus of the area around your ship. There is no ammo limit, so do not worry if you are just watching your guy and don’t know what you’re shooting at, somebody will die eventually – just as long as it’s not you.
Save the Last Humans
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The voice says it every time you start a level; however, what you may not realize, is that saving the humans is optional. You could beat a level with no humans saved and you will not be punished.
So why should you bother saving them?
Even though you don’t have to save them, you should. Every human you save gives you a bonus of some kind.
You might just get points, but you might get an extra life or a bomb. You are going to have to make some on-the-fly decisions on this subject though. You need to somehow weigh the odds of your survival during your attempt to save the human. If you find one is not worth it, then leave them. The best you can get is an extra life, and you aren’t guaranteed that. If you die then, even if you save the human anyways, you will be either down a life or just even.
To help you save the humans, you need to watch for the visual prompts.
Keepers are marked by a green light. So, when you hear the message, you need to focus on finding and killing those enemies emitting a green aura. Also, if you are near the beam and cannot quite get the human there without a risk, then throw them at the beam.
Once you have killed the keepers, an arrow will be next to your ship that points to the fastest direction to the nearest human. Also, before the keepers arrive, the box of the next-released human will have a sort of green reflection/light on it.
In order to get a high score, you absolutely cannot afford to lose a human. You are going hardcore now, so it is worth the risk. You either save the human or restart. Each human awards points, multiplier, and maybe even bonus points.
You Can’t Hurt or Kill the Humans
Most people will come across this fact by accident, but, in case you did not know yet, you can shoot the crap out of those guys and they will not feel a thing. This can be useful because you can actually save a human from falling or hitting an enemy by shooting them and essentially “juggling” them on your cannon’s rounds.
Listen to Your Controller
Depending on your opinion, you might find that little voice in the controller extremely annoying; however, it’s also extremely helpful. Do not keep your TV volume too loud because you want to be able to understand every single one of those dialogues. If you find it too loud, which I did, the controller volume can be adjusted in the Playstation 4’s audio settings.
Maintain Your Multiplier
This is almost guaranteed the most important tip you will receive when going for your highscore. You never want to let that multiplier fall. This means dying will really screw you over. Anything worth points will keep your multiplier going, this includes little things such as saving a human.
To keep your multiplier high, save your bombs for when you truly cannot reach any enemies in time. This will keep your multiplier going and spawn some new enemies closer to you. Before resorting to this, though, you should utilize your boost and the long-range of Phobos to keep the multiplier going without using a bomb for as long as possible.
Herding
This is not a concept that I got into, because I never really went for big high scores, but this is something you will want to know if you are going for the top scores. When you save multiple humans in succession, you will receive more points. Also, when you place a human on the ground, under the beam, they will not be saved yet and will not walk away from under the beam.
To take advantage of this, grab the humans one-by-one and put them under the beam. Once you have your “herd,” you can then save them all and you will get extra points.
Trophy-Specific Tips
Going for the platinum? These tips will help you earn some of the harder trophies so you can show your friends that 100%.
Micromanagement
This trophy requires you to save two humans within a single second. I originally tried to have one human sitting underneath the beam and then save one, grab the other, and save them, but that took too long. So, I found the best way to do this is to have one human in your grasp and another human bouncing on your cannon-fire. Then just guide the bouncing human into the beam and follow right behind him.
How Do I Stop This Thing?! / O to the D
You could very easily come across these trophies as you play the harder difficulties, but I found one place you can do it really easily. On one of the levels, I believe the third one (sorry, my memory is a little foggy), you will be facing a boss who is just a giant cube. One of his abilities is to let off a cube that does not shoot, but keeps subdividing into smaller cubes as you shoot it.
These decoy cubes all count towards these trophies, so line up these cubes and go nuts. You should have no problem earning this trophy.
Published: Mar 25, 2014 04:52 pm