PowerUp Forever

PowerUp Forever manages to catch our attention by giving you the opportunity to, power up forever. [Feb 2009, p.85]

There are a lot of things to love about PowerUp Forever: the trippy visuals, addictive old-school style of gameplay, but there are also some things that tend to weight it down. Lack of multi-player, repetitive gameplay and generic sound effects keep this one from being a classic in its genre. However, if you are a fan of games like Mutant Storm and Geometry Wars then PowerUp Forever is likely to satisfy your need for twin-stick shooters

PowerUp Forever would have been a much different game with some semblance of multiplayer, instead all we get is flimsy leaderboard support for all three of the difficulty levels.

Despite distinctive visuals and intuitive controls, PowerUp Forever still grows old before its time.

PowerUp Forever is a pretty good dual-joystick shooter that stands out, even though there are now around a billion of these games available on various digital download services. If you felt that Flow was too soft, or that you wanted more guns in the first stage of Spore, you'll certainly dig it.

PowerUp Forever has a gorgeous look, and if it copies too heavily from other games, it combines the borrowed bits in a truly unique way. It’s more artistic than most games, but it’s also strictly a solo experience. There are a ton of other twin-stick shooters that are just a little deeper and better balanced, and many of them offer multiplayer support.

It lacks the tight, focused gameplay of something like "Geometry Wars," but it's entertaining enough. [Issue#42, p.112]

A mediocore game that occasionally engages.

It may have its good points, but when it comes down to it PowerUp Forever isn’t as good as many of the other similar titles available over Xbox Live. [Feb 2009, p.113]