Jydge Review

Developer: 10tons
Size: 705MB
Players: 1

10tons got plenty of mileage out of their top-down engine with Neon Chrome and Time Recoil providing class retro shooter entertainment with a modern HD edge. Jydge is probably the pinnacle of that, as the company moves onto the more evolved Tesla Vs Lovecraft, which is coming to Switch sometime soon.

But back to Jydge, borrowing liberally from Judge Dredd, you stomp about like the ultimate flatfoot, dealing weapons-based justice. There's a bit more to it than Neon Chrome, with rescue missions and various ways of winning levels or getting the best result. Go fast, go hard, go stealthy are just some of the ways to win and get all the medals.

Set in Edenbyrg, you turn up at a crime scene and blast your way though the doors, or sneak in round the back, looking for perps and hostages, loot and other objectives. Your guns, aka Gavel, can be upgraded with various powers to deal more damage, or do it faster. Your Jydge can also be upgraded with Cyberware powers and collectibles, But it all costs money and there are trade-offs to be made, which might help in some missions.

In battle you can either go in blazing, and likely die, or make a little effort to scope out the bad guys and the locations of any hostages or valuables. These are usually behind locked doors, so there's keys and other goodies to find around the level.

A solid dual-stick shooter, Jydge has plenty of dark neon atmosphere to suck you in, and short, action-packed levels. You need to complete enough objectives to unlock later levels across four acts, and while you're the law there's no one to stop you from robbing and wrecking every room at the scene.

With suitably clanky and chunky sound effects, a varied collection of music and very nice lighting to illuminate the darkness, this is a good blast. However, there's not quite the replay value of Neon Chrome with its increasingly tough sets of random levels and its particularly nasty overlord. Still, the customisation options make up for that, and there is lots to see and doom in the dark of this crime-wracked city.

Score 3/5