I haven’t gotten much done this week because of real life issues.While last week was a lot of crap, this week I have been playing a great game that I will review now. Genome Guardian is a roguelite turret shooter with the upgrade elements of an auto-shooter. You have a thirty second wave to kill microbes and survive. In between there is a shop with you buy(and combine) weapons and upgrades, as well as heal yourself.
Genome Guardian’s Weapons and Upgrades
The hook of the game is that each turret comes with weapon slots that can be filled with one of four weapons, corresponding to A,C,T and G(machine gun, pistol, bomb and shotgun). You guy extra weapon slots and combine. So lets say you combine A and C, you get a scout rifle weapon. A and G will get you an auto-shotgun. Note that in Genome Guardian, it doesn’t matter in which order you place the weapons, A and G or G and A will always get you the auto shotgun. Some of the weapons are obviously better than others, like I find the scout rifle(C and A) near useless in extract mode, while others seem overpowered(Shotgun + Bomb hybrids = Awesome). Note there are upgrades you can plug into the weapons to increase stats like damage and range.
In addition to the weapons in Genome Guardian, there are turret upgrades you can purchase, like more shields, or better cooldown on your turret. After levels five, ten and fifteen, you get a mutation. This is where you pick the way things get harder, like increased damage and health, or have the microbes move in a spiral. There are also perks you can slot before you start, which can do interesting things, like reverse knockback effects into pulling the microbes towards you. The two currencies are Biomass, which are used in the shop, and research, which are used to purchase permanent upgrades in the research shop.
Depth and Breadth
As you can see above, you’ll be playing Genome Guardian a while. There are six modes with six-difficulty levels(called Depths). I’ve currently only unlocked one extra mode, SHUMP, that turns the game into a vertical shooter. I’m sure the others are just as cool. There are awards, perks and turrets to unlock as well. There is a lot here to enjoy. Also noteworthy is the soundtrack, which has effects on the playing field and the microbes move in time to the move. There are other neat effects I’ll leave you to discover.
Genome Guardian is awesome. I love it. I’ll give it a must play with a nine back-end score. It doesn’t get a ten because of weapons being unbalanced and the graphics not really impressing me much besides the neat effect. Still, I highly recommend it and it is absolutely worth the money. With all the different options in weapons, upgrades, perks turrets, and mutations, how you play is up to you.
Overall: Genome Guardian is a roguelite turret shooter with a ton to unlock and hidden depth to find with its core weapons feature.
Verdict: Must Play
| Release Date | 2/6/25 |
| Cost | $11.99 |
| Publisher | Stingbot Games |
| ESRB Rating | E |
Game received for free from the Publisher!
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