In a futuristic world where robots have broken the tenuous peace treaty between humans and the synthetic, only the talented Gravity Heroes stand against total annihilation. A task force perfectly equipped to investigate the mystery of why the treaty has been disbanded, these Heroes harness the power of gravity itself to defeat legions of haywire machines. They’ve also got a bunch of kickass guns. Hold onto your lunch and prepare to hug the walls and ceilings when you jump into Gravity Heroes, a chaotic 2D platform shooter from UK publisher PQube (Nexomon Extinction, Cat Quest).

Gravity Heroes promises a fast-paced arcade experience, allowing you to dive into any of its three main modes right from the get-go: Campaign, Versus, and Survivor. The latter two are geared more towards a multiplayer experience, but you can also play the entire (short) campaign with up to four players locally. There’s a quick tutorial to introduce the controls, which does a decent job of explaining the game’s unique mechanics in a tactical and practical way.

The gimmick in Gravity Heroes that sets it apart from other 2D platform shooters is the ability to manipulate gravity with the flick of the right joystick. At any moment you can change the direction of the player character’s gravitational pull, allowing you to walk on walls and the ceiling, or “fly” through the air with some quick joystick movements. This mechanic is integral to the game’s design, with enemies bouncing about the various arenas and launching deadly projectiles everywhere. It’s also heaps of fun. While you have a dedicated jump button, it’s much more satisfying to send your character soaring through the air, dodging lasers and bullets with instant gravity shifts to change your direction mid-flight. With tight and responsive controls, you can pull off some amazing feats of dexterity – much like Buzz Lightyear of Toy Story fame, you’ll spend most of your time falling with style.

There’s also a heap of powerups to collect in each stage. Helpful drones occasionally deliver grenades, body armour, and temporary weapon enhancements. The default weapon fires rapidly but lacks heavy firepower, with the enhancements providing a variety of unique effects while they last. There’s a gun that shoots slow, powerful lasers. Another gun scatters your bullets in many directions, while one of my favourites launches balls that bounce around the stage and add to the visual carnage. They’re fun to play with, but the randomness of their delivery and the lack of permanent upgrades makes them more of a bonus than an integral part of strategic play.

While we only dabbled with the Versus and Survivor modes, they were simple fun. Versus pits up to four players against each other in arena battles with a surprising amount of customisation – you can toggle enemies spawning, set time limits and powerup frequency, and select from different maps with unique hazards. I can see this being hilarious with a few competitive mates, perfect for a quick couple of rounds. Survivor is an endless mode, bringing in hordes of enemies and tasking players with lasting as long as possible. It gets brutal pretty quickly, so some practice in the campaign is essential.

While there’s a bit of story happening in Gravity Heroes’ campaign, it’s told entirely through dialogue boxes before and after each stage and seems to be more of a framing device for all the shooting. My co-op buddy and I tried to follow along for the first few stages and noticed that there’s unique dialogue depending on which player characters you’ve chosen, which is a nice touch. However, the text started dragging on a little longer than our patience held, and we were quickly skipping scenes to get back to the robot-smashing.