Orbitron Revolution is a side scrolling shooter reminiscent of the classic arcade game Defender. The game features 3 game modes:
Guardian - Where you defend the four sections of your space station from enemies that use a drilling attack.
Countdown - Where you face wave after wave of enemies, attempting to score as many kills before he clock runs out.
Extra - Where you have to survive with 1 life as long as possible against an ever increasing number of enemies.
The graphics nice, with particularly nice detail on the Orbitron space station that the game revolves around. This is both a blessing and a curse, however, as the graphically detailed surface of Orbitron in the background can often make enemies difficult to see.
The sound is acceptable, with the standard lazer type xaps and explosions you would expect. The background music gets the job done without being intrusive or annoying.
Where Orbitron really falls down is the keyboard controls. This is where the fact that this is a port from an XBox game really shows. The game does apparently support an XBox 360 controller, but I do not have one so I had to use the keyboard instead. The keys use wasd for movement, which is fine. However the developers made an odd choice of selecting the enter key for firing the main weapon, and the back space and +/= key for special attacks. There is no option to remap these keys either, so you are stuck with them if you do not have a controller.
There is also only one two ships to choose from and one map. The ships do not seem to differ much in their basic performance or weapon. The ships do handle well, and the Orbitron map is nice, but the lack of anything more does limit the game's long term replay ability.
Still, there is some fun to be had in this flawed arcade shooter. If you liked Defender back in the arcade days this game may give you a few minutes of nostalgia. The low price makes this a good game to use those last few blue coins you have laying around if you want some cheap fun. I just hope the XBox 360 controller support is better than the keyboard setup. Three stars.