Like so many downloadable releases these days, Ion Assault is one pretty game. The concept of the game is that you float around the screen pulling in particles from the surrounding ion cloud and expelling them at objects. Your right joystick controls your aim (left and right rotate your ship in the respective direction), and your left joystick will thrust you in any direction, giving you free range of motion while firing in on a 360-degree field. Holding the left trigger slows your throttle and activates your gravity generator, which sucks in particles from the ion cloud...releasing it fires the particles in a stream that pummels your target and can actually splash back and cause damage to other nearby obstacles. In this sense, the first few levels feel significantly like Asteroids...until the enemy ships start showing up.
Yes, that's right: enemies. There are several types of enemy ships and stationary targets, all of which enter the area via portal and attack in some way. Some have straightforward shooting capabilities, some chase you down, and some just wander around like deep space snakes waiting for you to run into them and damage your own ship; there's even a craft that splits into two smaller gunships when damaged, taking the concept of breaking down your obstacles to a new level.
Obstacles throughout the game include asteroids, chunks of ice, and even hulking pieces of space junk, each relevant to the "sector" that you're currently in. There are four sectors in all, which can be divided into five stages and a boss stage. These fights consist of destroying portions of the boss -- such as turrets -- and then finally the boss itself.
There are a small number of powerups you can pick up from certain enemies or obstacles: three passive powerups (which are activated automatically) and three offensive (which you activate with your right trigger). Power Shield and Gravity Boost respectively add protection and extend the range of your gravity generator (so that you can pull in more particles). Chrono Stasis freezes everything but your ship for several seconds. Offensive weapons include the Vortex Grenade, which is a stationary mine that draws in particles in a vortex pattern, then expels them...Seeking Drones, which are basically missiles that hunt down enemy targets...and the Plasma Torus, a one-time fiery blast that originates from your ship and does damage in all directions.
At first glance, it appeared that Ion Assault supported four players in co-op, but alas this is not the case. The campaign is limited to two players; I eventually saw this as a good thing. With so many particles bouncing around and obstacles filling the screen, even just two players can make the screen so busy that it makes Geometry Wars look like a funeral service. Well...not really to that extreme, but you get the point: it can get hectic. The pace of the game would be well-suited to four players, but the premise is not. It's possible that Coreplay could have extended the size of the "sector" to accommodate more players, but that's pure speculation, and with physics this complicated I'm not so sure that the technical changes would be that simple. There is a versus mode that supports 4 players; perhaps axing that would have left more resources for better co-op.
And to be honest, the versus modes are anything but engaging...despite being somewhat original. In Arena -- the most interesting to me of the three modes available -- players swap their gravity cores for an actual gun, something akin to a laser. A large asteroid sits at the center of the sector, and players each have a base that revolves around it in clockwise fashion -- the object of the match is to protect your base while destroying the others. You can set a marker at any point, and your base will fire drones in that direction; once they reach the marker, the drones will veer toward the nearest enemy base. It's a simple way to channel them around the center asteroid, but unique in that you choose the path that they take. Of course, all players have the ability to destroy them mid-vector, which makes the drones both deadly to bases and vulnerable to players. It's well-balanced and simple enough to be fun...but with only leaderboards and a such a simple premise, I found myself drawn back to the campaign.
For 800 MS Points, Ion Assault offers more than many Arcade games. It has some degree of innovation combined with the timeless gameplay of a classic like Asteroids. If you like games that are easy to control and dazzle your eyes, then you may want to check this out. You can get a good three or four hours of solid entertainment out of this game with the campaign alone, and it's great for couch co-op.