Big Sky Infinity Review

I don’t want to undersell that last part - Big Sky Infinity is prone to erratic spikes in difficulty, and when they hit, they hit hard. In an otherwise untaxing run, you might abruptly find yourself beset by a swarm of enemies, as asteroids hurl at you, lasers fire from off-screen, and the screen de-saturates to an indistinct wash of black. Big Sky Infinity isn’t so much a “bullet hell” game as it is a “neon stuff hell” one. You'll be hard-pressed to make out your own ship in the spectacle, let alone where the hazards are. The backgrounds contribute to the problem, too. While the rainbow nebulas and gas clouds are pleasing to the eye, too often they blend with the lasers and enemies, making it all the more difficult to react properly.

It all adds up to mean one thing: death in Big Sky Infinity comes suddenly and without warning. Nine times out of ten, you won’t actually know what killed you; whether your craft explodes in the midst of a laser light show of enemy fire, or in the greyscale darkness of a black hole, you likely won't see your end coming. And that’s after you’ve gone through the ringer that is Big Sky Infinity’s trial-and-error acclimation period. The game’s first few hours were marked by one recurring utterance: “Huh....so I guess that can kill me?” In early sessions, I suffered a variety of avoidable deaths by: flying into deadly gas clouds (that look exactly like harmless gas clouds), shooting at invincible enemies, shooting at enemies that harm you when shot, trying to drill through features that can’t be drilled through, and trying to spin through enemies that can’t be killed via spin. The Library’s inclusion is clearly intended to mitigate this feeling-out process, but it errs more on the side of humor than helpfulness, and tragically, stops showing images of its entries right at the point where you start really needing them. A decision motivated by the desire to reserve some secrets and surprises, no doubt.

Big Sky Infinity plays some such hands close to the vest, so that there are a few new experiences waiting down the line on a successful run. I’ll happily grant that there's fun in the once-in-a-blue-moon appearances. Yet the more significant result is that after all this playing, there are still many things that insta-kill me in Big Sky Infinity, and I still don't know what they are or how they do it. I'm stuck trying to recall the circumstances of my death, in order to pair them up to a vague descriptor in the library. "Was it the glowy orb thing that did me in? Or maybe the black dot?" Who can recognize or learn from a challenge that you rarely encounter, that comes only when you're distracted and overwhelmed? Too often, I find myself putting down, "Cause of death: Artificial Difficulty" - that cardinal sin of game design.