Veks and Silence was developed by i ENDER i and retails for 400 MSP. It was released on August 8, 2009. A copy of the game was provided by the developer for review purposes.

Veks and Silence is a side scrolling shooter akin to Metal Slug and Contra. In it, you take control of the hero, Silence. An odd character to be sure, Silence is overweight and always has a paper bag over his head, but what he lacks in looks he makes up for in sheer firepower. The game begins with a corporate-generated zombie apocalypse that has filled the world. Silence is the reluctant savior. Carnage and mayhem are sure to follow.

Here’s what we liked:

Attitude – From the moment Veks and Silence starts you’re greeted with opening music that lets you know you’re in for a fight. The visuals are gritty. Silence looks like a bum. The zombies explode in glorious gore. The game takes a fairly hardcore stance and does it very well. It’s evident that a lot of effort and thought went into creating the cinematics. The opening art for each stage is polished and a lot of fun–it almost has a comic book feel to it. It’s also amusing that the game is aware of itself, often breaking the fourth wall. We got a real kick out of the game telling us that a video game hero failed to save the city.

Weapons – Most shooters offer you powerups that you have to tenaciously hold on to. A common by-product of this is being terribly underpowered when you lose them. There’s no such issue in Veks and Silence. Here you are given your four main weapons right out the gate: a pistol, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, and a chain gun. Each weapon has different attributes; the key is figuring out which weapon to use in a given situation.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Control scheme – As awesome as it is to have all the weapons available to you all the time, it comes with a trade off. The method used to pick weapons is the D-pad. It can be problematic as there are those who prefer to use the D-pad for character control in games like this. Even worse, requiring the use of both the analog stick and D-pad disqualifies a regular joystick from being used here. It’s a real shame because a joystick really is the proper control method for a game like this.

Movement – The movement in this game never feels quite right. Silence moves a bit too slow and his jumps are way too loopy. It makes precise control in a difficult environment very frustrating. Throwing bombs is similarly slow and too often leads to accidental deaths. Games of this genre are generally difficult and Veks and Silence is no exception. Character control in games like these is everything, and Veks and Silence‘s aren’t good enough.

Difficulty – The difficulty amps up way too quickly. In fact, it’s so hard it forces you to play at a crawl for fear of being killed. The controls don’t help matters either. The biggest problem is that you only have three lives to complete a level. Even a notoriously hard game like Hard Corps: Uprising allows you to continue mid level. Not here, and that frustration is just the icing on the cake.

Veks and Silence is a game with tremendous potential. The gritty attitude and comic book feel are great. But spotty controls and insane difficulty really hurt the game. Mid level continues would have really cut down on the frustration. Despite these complaints, it is still a game that some will enjoy.

Score: Try It