As a fan of classic arcade games, I want to like Titan Attacks. Its polished visuals and basic core gameplay are well executed. However, control and pacing issues outweigh these positives.

To achieve fast movement, you must play with a mouse. And yet, the game does not lock your cursor to its window, nor does it lock in fullscreen mode with multiple monitors. If your mouse leaves the game, your movement is dropped. Players with multi-monitor setups have to disable all but one monitor to reliably play Titan Attacks, which is absurd.

So the mouse controls want you to play in fullscreen, which is cumbersome but manageable. But at least on Linux (haven't tested on Windows), minimizing while in fullscreen mode effectively crashes the game. I lost a couple hour-long sessions to this minimization crash, which is the biggest reason for my non-recommendation.

After each level, you are placed in a shop menu for purchasing tank upgrades. Given the brevity of levels, this menu seriously disrupts the flow. You can max out your ship quite quickly, rendering the shop nothing more than a health/bomb restore option, or more frequently, a "continue" button you must click before proceeding. I like the shop system, but wish it were integrated in a non-invasive manner.

Titan Attacks has clean, basic, and enjoyable gameplay. I just find it difficult to appreciate that action against these issues.

As a fan of classic arcade games, I want to like Titan Attacks. Its polished visuals and basic core gameplay are well executed. However, control and pacing issues outweigh these positives. To achieve fast movement, you must play with a mouse. And yet, the game does not lock your cursor to its window, nor does it lock in fullscreen mode with multiple monitors. If your mouse leaves the game, your movement is dropped. Players with multi-monitor setups have to disable all but one monitor to reliably play Titan Attacks, which is absurd. So the mouse controls want you to play in fullscreen, which is cumbersome but manageable. But at least on Linux (haven't tested on Windows), minimizing while in fullscreen mode effectively crashes the game. I lost a couple hour-long sessions to this minimization crash, which is the biggest reason for my non-recommendation. After each level, you are placed in a shop menu for purchasing tank upgrades. Given the brevity of levels, this menu seriously disrupts the flow. You can max out your ship quite quickly, rendering the shop nothing more than a health/bomb restore option, or more frequently, a "continue" button you must click before proceeding. I like the shop system, but wish it were integrated in a non-invasive manner. Titan Attacks has clean, basic, and enjoyable gameplay. I just find it difficult to appreciate that action against these issues.