20XX (PC) Preview

20XX fits the clone definition to the letter. Take the formula that made the source material great and expand on it. Here, this appears to be occurring in a few different ways. Presenting an explorable, albeit fairly shallow, overworld hub is a small touch that seems primed to work wonders. Shallow isn't meant to be a negative term, as the area seems to work more like an interactive menu.

Daily challenges are among the various cool landmarks to be explored in this main hub. Also, locations containing all unlocked skills and armour litter the area, allowing a living, breathing headquarters that seems primed to become a character practically in and of itself to be fully explored.

However, the main hub can't carry a game like this on all its own, and 20XX allows its depth to be traversed on either Casual or Hard. Both present randomly-generated levels, with baddies to be decimated and loot to be plundered. The random generation still needs some work, as certain platforms are easy to get to and nearly impossible to get off of, meaning finding some loot requires giving up on the level.

The baddies are tough, even on Casual, and the terrain is just as tricky. This is all mitigated by a levelling system that works fairly well. The art is also very enjoyable, looking almost like early AdventureQuest art, and clearly having some basis in Flash. All in all, everything feels really great, and since 20XX isn't at its finished build, it's exciting to see how the developers finish fleshing it out. There are definitely some kinks to be worked out before it is completed, predominately in balancing and making sure the controls are more fluid. It's still a great example of a title entering Early Access being almost polished enough to pass as a fully finished product.