With the recent news that both Watchdogs and Drive Club have been delayed to next year the launch line up for both PS4 and Xbox One are looking as barren as Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboards. Whilst not on quite the same scale as the launch of Sega Saturn in the UK which had a paltry 3 games on day one, early adopters like myself are not exactly being bombarded with big triple A titles to go with our shiny new machines. Especially on PS4 with the only next gen exclusive boxed games being Knack and Killzone: Shadowfall.

Praise the gaming gods then for Resogun. Having got hands on with Housemarque’s game at Eurogamer Expo 2013 this shooter is without a doubt the game I am most excited about. Playing like a love letter to Defender, one of the greatest side scrolling shooters of all time, crossed with the developers PS3 game Super Stardust. Whilst play takes place along a 2D plane the levels themselves are built as cylinders which allow you to see enemies spawn in the background so you can plan your strategy in advance.

The game is using the new found power of PS4 to great effect. Stages are built using voxels and are fully destructible, collapsing in a cascade of tiny cubes. Like Super Stardust enemies explode with a shower of sparks. This makes for some beautiful chaos when you release a bomb and the screen is filled with vibrant particle effects as enemies and buildings disintegrate en masse. Alongside said bombs your ship is equipped with lasers which are mapped to the right stick and a boost to get you out of a tight situation.

Like the aforementioned Defender, Resogun is a rather intense experience. With blinking only viable during brief gaps between shooting enemies and rescuing captured humans. This is definitely a ‘one more go’ type of game. My time with it was spent with equal measures of smiles and swears, which is exactly how this type of game should be. I suspect this could become the generation’s Geometry Wars, being the game everyone is really playing on their new consoles rather than the big name games, especially as the game will be free to all PS Plus subscribers. I can certainly see myself putting in a good few hours.