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Genre: Game - Arcade action

Developer: Laughing Dragon Games

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.3, 128MB RAM, 16MB OpenGL compatible video card

Price: $19.95

I've gone through a couple arcade-style shooters so far in this column, and each of them have had its own appeal. Derelict, while sharing a rather similar genre to the previous two, has a different appeal entirely. Derelict is a game completely unapologetic about being designed to whoop your ass, and it manages to do so with indie style and old-school vigor.

The customarily brief plot exposition places you as a two-member interstellar salvage team. While playing either as Rachel Riveter or Demolition Ralph, you board the aptly named Dire Circumstances and wade through hordes upon hordes of cartoonishly-cute but nonetheless lethal aliens. The game plays very similarly to Gauntlet; Derelict has you going through level after level of top-down mazes to blast bad guys, find keys and their corresponding doors, and race against time to get that bonus score at the end of each stage. Beat a level and go back to the Hub level, where you pick which section of the ship you want to take on next by selecting one of several teleporters, and do it all again. Simple.

Everything about Derelict is refreshingly old-school arcade. The power-ups are standard arcade fare, ranging from additional firepower in the form of multi-shots and increased rate of fire to extra smart-bombs that clear the area around you to give you some breathing room, bonus multipliers, collectible crystals for even more points, and speed-ups that enable you to walk several times as fast as normal. It's so wonderfully in tune with the design staples of the classic '80s arcade game that everything in Derelict will feel natural to even the most basic gamer: run, shoot, and run again like you did straight out of your momma's womb. And if you've got a gamepad or two, rock the house with a buddy for some cooperative carnage just like back in the day.

The graphics and music supplement this straightforward attitude quite nicely. The graphics are simple 3D models that resemble claymation figures like Wallace & Gromit—which makes for some of the cutest little bundles of death jaws and freeze rays you'll ever see—smoothly animated so that any recent Mac shouldn't have to worry about dropped frames. Like the rest of the game, it doesn't aim at beating the best in graphical splendor. Rather, it achieves its own style and is memorable for being unique and detailed rather than simply doing the same old thing better than everyone else. Even the repetitive-but-acceptably-so music tracks make your character's sprite swagger in tune with the music and make you feel inexplicably badass as they integrate into your player-character's biorhythm. And, like any Gauntlet tribute, there are a handful of voice samples that keep you up to speed on in-game events with the hammiest acting possible. My favorite sound bite is, by far, Demolition Ralph's grumbling, "Where's the red stuff?" as soon as his health gets low. It doesn't try to impress, and therein lies the charm.

Perhaps what I enjoy most about Derelict, though, is the level design. Now, normally when one thinks of "level design," one thinks of organic-looking 3D battlegrounds cleverly designed to look like what it's supposed to be—a moving train, a fortress, a prison, an urban environment—and function like an arena of death. People will think of Cliffy B and Quake and Unreal Tournament and WarCraft III and all kinds of other games in which level design is crucial; all of which is the polar opposite of Derelict's level design philosophy. Derelict is unafraid to throw you into deathtraps. It knows you don't really care what on Earth the ship designer behind The Dire Circumstances was thinking when he put eight different red, gold, and blue doors in what was supposed to be the ship's cafeteria. No, Derelict throws realism to the winds and does a true Gauntlet homage, complete with levels intricately designed to frustrate you, kill you, and make sure you figure out the trick to the level with just enough time to hit the exit with 10 seconds left on the bonus timer. And I love it for exactly that reason.

Derelict does a fantastic job dropping the pretenses that so many games can fall victim to and keep the game doing exactly what it does best. There is no malice involved. Rather, there is a common understanding between the game designer and the player that if you're playing Derelict, you're playing it because what you want is a straight-up 2D challenge, and so that's exactly what you get.

Download the Derelict demo.