Swimsanity! is an underwater themed multiplayer twin stick shooter.  Pick a diver and shoot robotic fish (and each other) in the deepest depths of the ocean.  Swimsanity! is available on nearly all current consoles and PC, but reviewed on PS4 here.

To control your diver, swim around in all directions using the L stick, and aim with the R stick.  Fire your gun by holding down the R2 shoulder button.  You can also teleport for a quick escape, but you have a limited amount of times you can do that.  When you destroy enough enemies, you can enter “Swimsanity” mode by pressing on the triangle button.  Depending on the class you pick when selecting your diver, this mode will do things like send a bunch of projectiles raining from above, or even healing yourself.  Shoot spheres during play to uncover and collect temporary power-ups, like speed boosts, shields, health, and rapid fire.

You can choose between Local and Online Play, view a tutorial in the How to Play Section, and toggle various Options in the main menu.  In the Local Play mode, you can choose to play solo, co-op where you work together to complete stages, or Vs. where you compete against each other.  In these modes you can tackle five stages of Adventure.  If you can master those, you’ll unlock harder versions in AdventureSanity.  And in Survival, you try to last as long as you can against waves of enemies.  The five stages in Adventure include Deep Blue Sea, where you are chased by a giant whale.  In Toxic Lagoon you continuously battle a huge robot sea turtle.  Explore maze caverns while avoiding a giant robot worm in Crystal Caverns.  Destroy chasing piranhas in Piranha Bay, and battle all manner of enemies in Relic Reef.  When you lose all your energy you take a life, and lose all your lives and it’s Game Over.

The main problem I had with this game is that it’s way too hard!  Even minor enemies take multiple hits to defeat!  Give us a selectable difficulty selection so players of all skill levels can enjoy it at least!  Also I’m not a big fan of twin stick shooters that require a separate button to fire.  Just pointing the R stick in a direction should make you automatically fire.  This is just one of those games that’s only fun in multiplayer mode, so I only recommend it if you have a bunch of friends who are up to the challenge.

Kid Factor:

Swimsanity! is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  You shoot all manner of robot fish and other divers who just explode or disintegrate when defeated.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, and younger gamers may find it too difficult.

Tags: Game Reviews