DN8 Pulse is shoot ‘em up that uses a classic format but with modern advances to improve the sub-genre. DN8 has a space theme which is kept very consistently; themes can be expressed through fonts, backgrounds, sprites and sounds.  I have loved the shoot ‘em up style ever since such arcade games as ‘Galaga’ and ‘Galatian’.

Previously and in the arcades ships would be fixed to the bottom of your screen. Something I personally find really cool is that without upgrades this game starts you out fixed so you do feel a sense of nostalgia, if you’re a video arcade fan!

Aesthetics are much better than a lot of flash games similar to DN8, using ugly bright colours for ships, but in this game I found the good colour tones and the particle effects just gave the game a pretty nifty look.

The gameplay format and presentation of DN8 is brilliantly original. It uses lines or rails that enemies move along. Enemies come in a myriad of different looks and line shapes, creativity used was here was excellent, enemy design was pretty good.

Like I said before at the start of the game, you are allowed movement in the X axis but, you are fixed to the Y, you have a single gun that fire strait up, that’s it.

Throughout the game you can choose exactly what you want for your ship, whether you prefer having a stronger shield or more firepower, the choice is yours! It’s simpler than other games I’ve seen that involve a cash system, just two very opposite upgrades to choose from for completing a level, it’s just that easy; the upgrade system kind of reminds me of the flash game “Effing Worms”.

I technical problem I did encounter was, on my computer the game just ran too slow, this problem was addressed and attacked well by the developers with a tester to see if the game was running smooth. The user can see a bullet spiral matrix if it runs smoothly then the sprites in game should run smoothly. You can sacrifice having moving background and high quality, which makes it a little less jerky – which is brilliant because as everyone will have experienced at some point, lagging games are just no fun – but for the record I would prefer a speed controller, because sometimes I just fount it too slow paced.

I would have also loved some more advanced bosses, by this I mean ones that move in patterns or that have weak spot that change as the boss fight goes on, dodging the bullets may be a little difficult, but it starts to get stale after a while. Does anybody else feel this way or have I just been spoiled by Starfox?

To conclude: great for curing boredom, a cool advanced look to finish it off. It has some things about the timing I don’t particularly like, but I think this can be overlooked easily because of the features like the simple upgrades and originality.