Resogun

In Resogun, the player battles phases of enemies on five distinct, cylindrical, voxel-based levels: Acis, Ceres, Decima, Febris, and Mefitis. Each level is separated into three phases and includes a unique boss enemy. Although the primary goal of each level is to eliminate all enemies, including the boss, humans can be saved in order to gain a bonus score towards the player's final score. In order to save a human, it must first be released from its chamber by killing a set of "keepers." Upon release, the player can pick up the human and bring it to one of two safety points.

Three ships (Nemesis, Ferox, and Phobos) are available for selection; each ship has different levels of agility, boost, and overdrive. In addition, various upgrades and powerups are available to the player throughout each level. Overdrive, once charged, produces a powerful beam of energy that is capable of taking out large quantities of enemies. Boost acts as a speed boost and allows the player to escape from enemies, as well as destroy enemies by colliding with them.

Resogun was developed by Housemarque, an independent game development studio from Finland known for its previous shoot 'em up games, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Resogun draws heavy inspiration from the games Defender and Datastorm, and acts as the spiritual successor to Housemarque's most recent Super Stardust games (Super Stardust HD and Super Stardust Delta), from which it directly borrows certain gameplay mechanics like the boost power-up. Harry Krueger, the lead programmer of Resogun, expanded on the inspiration for the game in an interview with S2P Magazine, explaining that "on the one hand, you have the classic shoot-and-survive gameplay of shoot 'em ups ... but there was this extra layer of gameplay there with micromanaging and saving the humans."

Despite being a launch title, Resogun makes extensive use of the PlayStation 4's hardware, with each level being built by nearly 200 million voxels. Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen stated that "we wanted to create a world which can break down into tiny pieces, so voxels were one of the options to use."

Resogun received a generally positive response from critics upon release. Ben Kuchera, writing for The Penny Arcade Report, declared Resogun as "the best PlayStation 4 launch game". At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the game received an average score of 84 based on 66 reviews. 0/10, praising the fast-paced, lagless gameplay, the energetic music, and the co-op experience, but insisted that several boss fights were not challenging enough.

Peter Brown of GameSpot also praised the music, as well as the use of voxels, explaining that the "accompanying beat of the techno-laden soundtrack and the constant trickle of voxels are mesmerizing." Brad Shoemaker of Giant Bomb described Resogun as "a real audio-visual treat", also praising the graphics and sound.