by Omar (@siegarettes)
Second opinion by Marie (@rlpte)

• Death Ray Manta
  
• by Bagful of Wrong (Rob Fearon)
  
• PC (Steam)
  

Death Ray Manta (hereto referred to as DRM) is a game that undoubtedly owes its existence to at least a handful of 80’s arcade shooters. Its most obvious debts is to Eugene Darvis’ seminal twin stick shooter, Robotron 2084. Its in the designs on the enemies, the obstacles, and their unrelenting onslaught. Enemy placements are consistent from level to level, however, so forward progress becomes a game of slow familiarity and a push for space. It initially threw me off, but I began to appreciate it as I started to acclimatize to the environment it was throwing me into.

See, learning to play DRM is as much about becoming intimate with layouts as it is parsing the space. Like Jeff Minter’s infamous Space Giraffe, DRM takes the format of its predecessor and continually applies layers of electrocuted neon particles until the your optic nerves are swollen with so many signals you’ll swear they have a current attached running through them. It’s a visual river that’s as much about the negative space as it is the positive, where you learn to drift with signals the game gives you about its current rather than parse it all at once.

Layered on that is appropriately 80’s synths and digital voices, both melodic and cacophonous, like leaving a set of CRTs running attract screens in a room together. Between its premise (yer the titular space fish), absurd flavor text, and levels whose names are all plays on pop cultural objects using the word “manta”, DRM marks itself as something Very British Indeed. It feels like a product of Amiga shooters and the PC demoscene, something that comes from a space where shooters of that history had never stopped being produced.

  DRM definitely occupies a niche within a niche. Its a shooter that’s likely to deobfuscate itself as you learn its process and philosophy. It’s also one that provides so much overwhelming stimulation that it becomes hard to parse anything more than short play sessions at a time. If you’re in that very specific audience you’ll know. More than likely its already wrapping its fins around you.

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SECOND OPINION
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by Marie 

Death Ray Manta echoes one phrase in a robotic voice on each death: “Pretty colors.” Pretty as they may be, the colors are more distracting than they are pretty. The gameplay is exceedingly tight Movement and shooting feel excellent, but there’s always some difficulty discerning where your character and enemies lie, as they’re just as brightly colored as you or the variety of obstacles in your way. Luckily, the game takes some steps to combat this by making enemies move at a medium speed and projectiles send out small circles of light in order to identify themselves. Still, visibility issues arise from the charming, but unnecessary text that erupts from everything, cluttering the screen further.

An excellent visual comparison would be the neon intensity of Geometry Wars, paired with the close hallucinatory nature of Hotline Miami. Text flashes and sways on the main menu (or lack thereof) and the game itself includes small text UI elements that cycle through a rainbow of colors. Again, pretty colors, are the main focus of this game. It’s feast for the eyes (and the ears, given the stellar soundtrack), but I can’t help but feel the visual overload hurts the game a bit.