We didn’t feel like we could move freely, and that led to deaths that weren’t deserved. When moving, there’s a tendency for UltraGoodness 2 to correct you to the cardinal directions like you’re navigating a grid. How does it hold up as a bog standard shooter? Okay, so the unique-selling-point happens to be unique, but not a selling point. If you’re stopping to choose an enemy to fire at, you’re probably dead anyway. Why would I want to take a bullet-hell twin-sticker slowly and tentatively? The second problem is that you really shouldn’t be getting yourself into those situations: UltraGoodness has a snowball effect if you are surrounded, taking multiple hearts from you in quick succession (more on how UltraGoodness handles failure in a moment), which means that you’re as good as dead. Stopping isn’t instinctive in a game genre that is built on frantic firefights, so you have to mentally contort yourself into doing it. The gimmick has been chucked into a dumpster and set on fire. Since you’re not moving, the enemy will reach you quickly, so what is your best option? To move away from the enemy AND fire at the same time, which is what you do in every single twin-stick shooter under the sun. But if you fire, time progresses, and the enemy moves towards you.

So, you have to do something, and that means firing. If you stand still, stopping time, then nothing happens – you and the enemy will be there until the end of time. It comes down to this: if an enemy is walking towards you, you have a few options.

We wish we had a chalkboard to explain why it doesn’t work, as the issue is very much visual. That’s because the gimmick doesn’t amount to much in UltraGoodness 2. You probably noticed that mention of ‘on paper’. On paper, this adds a layer of strategy to the twin-stick shooter, as you choose between fight, flight or sticking right where you are to get an advantage. Fire your guns, and they move closer again. Take a step, and enemies step toward you, and bullets inch their way closer.

UltraGoodness 2 has opted for a gimmick: time only progresses when you’re moving or shooting.

Regardless, if you’re going to stand out from perhaps Xbox’s biggest crowd, you have to offer something new.

UltraGoodness free downloads