HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed Preview

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Fast Facts

Title: HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed
Developer: Digital Cybercherries
Publisher: Digital Cybercherries
Website: Hypercharge Unboxed
Genre: FPS, Tower Defence
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Age Rating: Everyone
Release Date: 31/01/2020
Price: £17.99 – Rapid Reviews was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.

Welcome to a preview of the upcoming game which hits Switch a the end of January. After being on Steam in a testing environment for nearly two years. This game as the developer says brings a unique FPS to the Switch.

The premise of the game

The developer lists the story and premise of the game as the following; HYPERCHARGE Unboxed tells the story of Sgt. Max Ammo and his epic mission to defend the HYPER-CORE. Your task is to fulfil his mission and prevent the HYPER-CORE from being destroyed. If it’s destroyed, you can bid farewell to your human friends. They’ll forget about you. It’ll be like you never existed. Do not let that happen. Work together and win, for the future of toys everywhere!

The general story is that you play as Sgt. Max Ammo and the reason you are defending the HYPER-CORE from the waves of enemies is that the humans will forget about toys. They are the link between the humans and the toys of the world, If they are all destroyed children will never experience playing with the toys. You play as the leader of the good toys who are trying to stop the bad toys from destroying that link. Who wants to destroy this link? Who is out to make people forget toys? Playing the game hopefully, we will find out!!

The main game is a first-person shooter with a single-player or co-op defend/wave mode which plays out in home environments or levels. The twist here is you play as a toy-sized soldier and fight off other toys as they try and damage your hyper-cores effectively ending the level, Of course, the player wins if they destroy the five (5) waves of increasingly harder enemies.

Each map is set in various domestic locations including bedrooms, toilets, shops, alleyways and even an arcade. You are obviously very tiny so these levels are not only entertaining to climb over they also have little gems of hidden nostalgic memories, during my play of the game I noticed a shop that looks very much like the now-closed Toys R US some Jurassic Park-esque toys and posters and even an arcade machine playing a Pac-Man clone.

Your weapon is normally a standard rifle, which you can upgrade and find a second weapon to attach to it. Once you have done this it allows you access to these two weapons until you die. I have had some great fun with a flamethrower, sniper rifle and the shotgun.

Hidden amongst the levels they have dropped various collectables (four on each level). This encourages you to explore in the time before the waves enter the level. They also drop coin packs (which you use to build things and buy things), weapon attachments and in each level, you normally have a shop which is very cool as its an action figure packaging with the items held on with little white cable ties.

Before each wave starts you have a timer to build your defences for the hyper cores. The time limit is around five minutes but you can skip it once you and your party are done. The defences range from glue traps to lego style walls and even small little toy anti-bad guy canons which you unlock from getting set medals on each level.

You also have four varied difficulty levels of enemies, which in my experience meant I went from toys that just walked towards the hyper cores to enemies that shot back and even flew over my head! 

In-between each wave you have time to explore or to repair your defences or add more and even pick up the batteries to plug into a damaged hyper core to restore its health. The waves seem to get harder as you go past them if its more enemies, more advanced enemies or the boss-type toys who take so much damage it’s like a whole new tactical game (needless to say I defeated one such boss with a flamethrower in no time while previewing this with a Rapid Review Colleague).

Once you finish the level you’re awarded a bronze, silver, gold or platinum award along with various stats. These range from who died the most, how punched the most, worst accuracy etc, You then also unlock upgrades to your character which are mostly cosmetic looks along with more items that you can build.

You can play this mode in local co-op, single-player, online multiplayer. The game runs amazing in both docked and handheld mode on the normal switch and I had no issues on the switch lite either.

This game is really good fun with friends, on your own, it does get a tad hard to figure out what’s going on without a real map button which would be a great addition. The development team are looking at adding AI teammates for the single-player experience which would improve things. 

The game also has an upcoming PvP mode which I didn’t test during the preview. They have also announced a survive mode coming soon. You can hopefully read about these in the full review.

Hidden in the menus is also a cheat code page, in the future, the Development team hope to add some classic cheats. Bobble-Heads anyone?

The Development team also announced a road map for the game which you can see below. They are releasing all the content for free which is a great idea in a world of added DLC.

With a group of friends, this game is great. The switch does need a co-op online game and this could be it. I often felt held back by the lack of voice chat with teammates. I think playing this with a headset so you can talk to teammates could possibly excel it to one of the best co-op switch games out there right now. The shooting feels solid, the movement great and the sound pops. Although mostly weak against your super-soldier do put up a good fight and the boss moments and unexpected surprise enemies. Really had me wanting to see more.

This game has huge potential, I loved the game from what I played. I hope the reviewer feels like me. Personally, right now I would possibly give this a 4.5/5 on our review scale!!

You can preorder HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed for the Nintendo Switch from the Nintendo eShop on the following link, eShop.