I’m often conflicted by artists going back to the cutting room floor in search of old material to release in the present.
One of my favourite bands of all time, Led Zeppelin, have a near-perfect collection of songs and albums that released between 1969 and 1980. Despite these triumphs, guitarist Jimmy Page continues to find ‘new’ material that was deemed unworthy of inclusion on Led Zep’s seminal album releases, and packages them up as extras for fans to spend their money on.
Akka Arrh was originally prototyped back in 1982 but never released, effectively becoming another title left on the cutting room floor.
Where Akka Arrh differs from those repurposed Zeppelin tracks however, is that this game from the mind of legendary game designer Jeff Minter, didn’t just deserve to be included on an album, it should have been a lead single.
Atari gave Jeff Minter the chance to remake Akka Arrh and the game was originally released in February last year. Now, twelve months later, Akka Arrh has arrived on the PSVR2, and brought all of it’s trademark weirdness and arcade style shooting to an entirely new reality.
Table of Contents
Bullets And Bombs
Akka Arrh is a wave shooter in the same vein as titles like Space Invaders and Galaga. Players control a gun emplacement in the centre of the screen, although, this being a Jeff Minter game, the gun emplacement looks more like the head of a ram than a weapon of war.
Enemy ships will appear from all sides surrounding your ram/cannon, and each level takes place on a different geometric plane.
Players can launch bombs to repel the oncoming onslaught, with each explosive detonation generating a powerful shockwave within the geometric plane. The shockwaves will annihilate any ships within their radius, causing them to produce further shockwaves that can destroy other ships.
Good play and high scores occur by forming a chain of shockwaves with a single bomb, decimating waves of enemies with a solitary attack which increases a score multiplier with every subsequent kill. Using a new bomb resets the chain and reduces the score multiplier back to one.
Addictive Hits
Each successful kill/shockwave combo awards players with ammo for their secondary attack, the ability to fire speedy pink bullets. These projectiles work best when used to destroy rapidly moving single targets or ones that are immune to shockwaves, with your ammo count conveniently displayed above the crosshairs.
Certain enemies return fire once destroyed. It’s sometimes frustrating to track some of these incoming attacks and their velocity can feel a little cheap, especially in VR when they feel like they can emerge from nowhere and smash into you at supersonic speed.
Despite this minor niggle, seeing a well placed bomb resonate as an endless chain of pixelated destruction is immensely satisfying and feels like a drum pounding away while your bullets add a layer of melodic destruction over the top.
The sense of joy when your chain grows exponentially is euphoric and quickly becomes an addictive hit that players will relish chasing.
Popping Downstairs
Of course it’s not just about racking up high scores and creating chains of shockwaves. Your gun emplacement has limited health, represented by up to sixteen health pods that reside ‘downstairs’ on the lower level of the playing field.
As players progress through Akka Arrh, they’ll come up against stronger and more ferocious waves of enemies. Enemy ships that slip through your defences can infiltrate your inner sanctum containing your health pods and steal or destroy them.
Breaking from the action upstairs and assuming a defensive position is instantaneous. This new battleground is smaller in scale and sees your green health pods orbiting your gun emplacement.
The lower level grants automatic fire, bullets pinging out rapidly, allowing you to focus your attention on targeting intruders with the crosshairs.
Diving downstairs is always thrilling and the rush in VR is excellent. Zooming into the lower level presents a dramatic shift as pixels stretch and scream past your face as you prepare to destroy the invading ships.
Dealing with enemies on this level is also brilliantly punctuated with a loud blast from an air horn, signaling your triumphant battle and returning you back upstairs. It’s a simple audio cue but one that left me smiling every time it happened.
Perfect Sense
Like the majority of arcade titles from the era, Akka Arrh features minimal controls that do everything you need.
Players can move a small crosshair around the screen with the left analogue stick, launch bombs with the ‘X’ button, fire bullets with ‘O’ and transfer between the two gameplay levels with a squeeze of ‘R2’.
The control scheme is concise and to the point, allowing you to sink into the experience without needlessly complex configurations.
The PSVR2 Sense controllers’ impressive tech and features resist forced implementation into the control scheme. This is pure arcade simplicity at its best.
Virtual Visuals
Akka Arrh’s graphics will provide a warm glow of nostalgia to retro gamers. Simple geometric shapes appear with crisp, colourful lines, ships have pleasingly chunky forms and pixels explode everywhere you look. It’s unsurprising considering the original Akka Arrh prototype’s conception occurred way back in 1982.
Shockwaves radiate in different shapes with circles, diamonds and stars filling your eyes in VR and transporting you into a kaleidoscope of mesmerising colours.
Exploding enemies will send their score values rocketing towards your face, with impressive play resulting in a stream of increasing numbers streaming into your eyes.
Rare ‘blessed enemies’ appear occasionally and destroying them causes vibrant lightning to erupt across the screen for a short time.
It all meshes seamlessly together to form one cohesive and engaging experience, one that I enjoyed playing for long stretches and missed whenever I took my PSVR2 headset off.
Spicy Statements
Amongst the chaos of explosions and shapes, short strings of text will occasionally float through your peripheral vision and provide humourous statements designed to amuse, and potentially distract players as you look for the next enjoyable snippet.
I recently spoke to David Lowry from Atari and he told me that these phrases were originally a little bit “naughtier” and that they’ve been made “less spicy” for the retail release of Akka Arrh. Spicy or not, they always entertained me whenever I managed to read one.
The default visual setting can be overwhelming, especially in VR. Text flickers in vibrant yellows and pinks as if it’s trying to attract your attention within a busy arcade full of noise and flashing lights. It’s overwhelming but thankfully, for this reviewer anyway, there’s an option to use subdued dynamic colour effects that makes Akka Arrh accessible for more people to experience in VR.
All of the visual flourishes combined to make me slip further into the world of Akka Arrh. The vibrancy perfectly contrasted against the deep black void, leaving me enthralled and entranced for every second that I played.
Final Thoughts
As you’ll see throughout this review, Akka Arrh is incredibly impressive on PSVR. The simple controls and gameplay concept allows players to warp into this virtual world and become engrossed among the chaos.
Jeff Minter’s trademark humour and surrealism is omnipresent, from the ram’s head to the air horns to the way enemies say ‘bang’ when they explode. The typical Llamasoft weirdness is alive and well.
If you own a PSVR2, you owe it to yourself to play Akka Arrh.
