Reactive is a mix between a 2D shooter and a puzzle game, reminiscent of games like Earthwork Jim or Battletoads on NES. Using your keyboard controls, you have to move around and attempt to survive in environments that, because of slightly pixelized graphics, look hostile and crowded. Your 2 legged chameleon can aim around and shoot enemies, but you have to wait for the clockwise motion of your aim to be focused on your enemy to shoot it. This and the number of obstacles present in the game make it fairly difficult, even from the start.
The originality of the game also resides in the unexpected reactions that you get from materials, like water or gas, that come into contact. You can sometimes use these reactions to your advantage to get through a level. As you progress through the game, you'll also know how to detect potentially dangerous reactions.
Reactive is certainly an original game. Although the graphics and game mechanics are not always excellent, the difficulty level and unexpected chemical reactions make it a real challenge.
Pros
Keyboard controls
Materials react with each other
Cons
Limited movements
Graphics
Have you seen enough of all those 3D first person shooters? Reactive is here to present a whole new genre in gameplay. Reactive can be played like a 2D shooter if you play it in Deathmatch or Capture the Flag mode. This can be done over network or by using splitscreen or both. The single player quest however is a puzzle style game. There are over 25 visually stunning levels where you need to manipulate your environment to get to the exit.
In reactive you control a 2-legged chameleon armed with 9 different weapons. You manoeuvre in a 2D world where everything is interactive. You can for example bust a dam to flood your enemies. In fact the fluid simulation is a key aspect of playing reactive. In the world of Reactive there are 24 unique materials that can react with each other. There are 5 gasses, 6 liquids and 13 solids. It is for example possible to let water drip on lava. The water will heat up and turn into damp. By controlling these reactions you can work your way through the quest levels, in the multiplayer level you can use your understanding of the reactions to boobytrap your enemies.
Played this a lot when I was young. Never went anywhere- clearly meant to be an online arena game a la Unreal or Wolfenstein ET or others of its time, but nobody ever played it. Reactive is aptly named- the way literal 'reactions' come into play is unavoidable. Some doors will only open when exposed to hydrogen, but all you have access to is water- you have to figure out what junk to pile together to separate the hydrogen, and it never *felt* like chemistry- just playing around in a goofy, ragdolly, fluid-physics world.And man were those physics were fascinating- one of the first games I knew of that let you climb a wall by rotating your arm repeatedly. Art and audio direction was odd, but there was something profoundly interesting about it all. Like it could have been a classic if people knew more about it.
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