If you want to tackle bosses the size of cities, scrap with colossal enemies on collapsing rope-bridges, and battle dragons while riding on the back of a wolf, you’ve come to the right place. Mark Butler argues that with new indie game Intrusion 2, the ‘shut up and take my money’ meme has never been more appropriate.

At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking that Intrusion 2 is just like every other side-scrolling shooter game out there. But the reality is somewhat different.

Firstly, the PC and Mac title is a result of the tireless efforts of just one man – Aleksey Abramenko – who spent more than three years of his life painstakingly creating the eye-catching graphics and hi-octane gameplay. Hell, he poured a whole five months into perfecting the final boss battle alone. And boy does it show.

For the second important point is that this is a game that, while owing a clear debt to genre classics such as Contra, also takes the side-scrolling, gun-blazing antics of its brethren into territory so obscenely OTT and epic that it just screams excitement. Just take a look at this trailer, which has gone viral in the past 24 hours, and tell me it doesn’t look absolutely fantastic:

 

 

No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. You do get to battle flying monsters from the seat of a snowmobile, ride a wolf into the fray while blasting enemies with a laser, and tackle a gargantuan boss that picks up and crushes whole skyscrapers in its hand when you run into them for shelter.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that all of this awesomeness sits atop a solid foundation of fiery mech fights, rag-doll physics and terrifically-designed environments.

With the game already picking up glowing reviews from the likes of Destuctoid, and looking like a phenomenally fun spin on a classic retro formula, I guess there’s only one reasonable course of action to consider…

 

 

Intrusion 2 is available to download at the game’s official site for $10, and will be released on Steam shortly.