Whether you head out needing to kill all enemies before your exit portal emerges, or find yourself traipsing across trains, needing to destroy barrels or more, playing through Dust & Neon is really good fun. The levels and tasks are varied depending on the mission at hand. Of course, come up against a boss or two, and you’ll find yourself trying to down fairly sizeable enemy health bars, considering attack patterns and the like.

Rolling and sliding out of trouble is then called for thankfully, old Gunslinger is a fairly nimble sharpshooter who can whizz his way out of trouble. For the most part, lining up a shot and pulling hard with your itchy trigger finger will sort opponents out, but at times it can be fairly easy to be swarmed. They come in a range of forms the fast, the slow, the weapon packing, the shielded and more. Those stages are well created too, ripe for exploration and full of foes. Stages mix up mission objectives in a good way Dust & Neon certainly knows how to do frantic. Health points should be hunted down as a matter of priority too especially on any stage or level that is deemed higher than ‘easy’. Checking out nooks and crannies is key to success in Dust & Neon, if only as it’s there where you’ll start to gather up precious resources in-game cash, cores and better weapons. Stages are never too big that boredom arises, but for the most part they are fairly open, decent affairs with plenty of secrets. And these are certainly the best moments of what David Marquardt Studios and Rogue Games have produced. That’s fine for us, as it lets the twin-sticking elements and constant upgrading to come to the fore.

In fact, whilst there is a bit of backstory to the bosses themselves, allowing you to read up on them in the lab, for the most part you’ll be sent headlong into a stage and asked to get on with it.

Narrative wise and Dust & Neon is lacking. Taking them down then continues the tale. Eventually, after a bit of rinsing, repeating and the occasional death, you’ll find yourself levelled up enough to take on an end of region boss. Reaching a variety of end goals is your sole aim, before you head back to the lab, regroup, reassign abilities and skills, and go at it again. Dust & Neon takes you through a host of stages, collecting loot and cores, as you fight back against anything that comes your way.

Dust and Neon for ipod instal