First impressions... Spirits of Xanadu is an okay, but average space shooter. I'm having fun playing it, but I had to switch from Normal difficulty to Easy as it was pretty hard for me. You get pummeled sometimes by a lot of enemies at once. Even if you try to run, they'll hunt you down. You don't seem to die, but wakeup in a detention center for reasons I won't say. I don't want to spoil the plot for you.

My only issue, and it's not bad at all, is I wish the flashlight was a little brighter and reached further before fading out. It's useless in air ducts! I had to quit and continue my game from my last save point at the main menu, because I was lost in the blackness of an air duct. So far the game is dark and require the flashlight al the time. Unless hiding... :-)

There are save terminals in certain spots, but they are pretty close to eachother. But as I said, you don't really die, not yet anyway, so saving seems to be needed when you want to quit the game. I save anytime I see the terminals just in case I do eventually die! lol

I am not that far into the game, but it feels sort of old school compared to newer FPS games. That can be both good and bad. Depends on the player. I'm not going to say this is my final views of the game as I need to play it more. I just wanted to say if it looks like something you might want to play, then get it now on sale.

The game runs silky smooth at 1280x1024, medium shadows and AA turned on. I haven't tried any other settings as this is the default settings and it feels right. Once I turned on AA, it slowed down a bit. If I take the resolution up, I'm sure it will lag on my 5 y/o iMac.

Here are my system specifications: Apple iMac, i5 Quad-Core Intel processor 3.1GHZ, AMD Radeon HD 6970M with 1GB dedicated video RAM, 4GB system RAM, 1TB hard drive running OS X version 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard), Journaled HFS+ Extended file system, Logitech optical mouse.

EDIT: After playing the game a bit longer, and still having fun, I was able to get the lights turned on and can now see in the air ducts. If playing on Normal or harder difficulties, I can see these air ducts being essential to game play. The enemy can be ruthless! Still keeping my 3 star review, as the game isn't great, but it is good and fun to play. I may still change my views as I keep playing. I recommend getting this game if you are interested. Especially on sale!

Great Game!!! See my lengthy ramblings below in the comments section...

EDIT: I have to add that I purchased this game on Steam also during it's Early Access stage and the developers are some of the nicest, hardest working people I have had the pleasure of working with! They listened too, and implemented all of our ideas! In less than three months, they took a 6 level game to a 12 level game all balanced and ready to play! It was an incredible patch! KUDOS to the dev's once again! Dead Effect Rocks!!! I fully recommend this game to ALL zombie fans!

Gameplay is your typical Tower Defence (TD) game with 3 nations to play. Each nation has their own campain, complete set of individual maps and very interesting towers. This game is on a much grander, epic scale than most other TD games. There are many maps and towers for each nation, and they are all different for each nation. It will take a while to get through the 3 campains. There are also special abilities to unlock as you level up your character. I think level cap is 50.

The game seems a little unbalanced for single player and requires speed, strategy, and a little luck to beat the many different maps. You use both the keyboard & mouse to control the game. You have total control over the camera via the keyboard during battles.

The money is slow coming which makes the game seem unbalanced on certain maps, but the developer's have told me they will look into rebalancing the game if needed. Even on easy difficulty, the game is pretty hard in single player mode. I have not played a multiplayer game yet as I have not found any servers to join and nobody has joined one of my games when I host one.

The developer's did put a lot of love and hard work into this game as the product speaks for it's self. At times, it still feels a little unbalanced in single player. It seems like it's geared more for multipler and not single player. Although, you can replay the maps to keep advancing your character's level in single player mode. If you start a new game, you keep your stats so you can try the other nations and keep advancing levels, and unlocking special abilities. That's a cool feature of this game!

Some maps require you to protect multiple gates and you just don't get enough gold to do that in single player, so again it feels like it's geared towards multiplayer games. The game also has advanced AI with alternate pathing abilities, so if your defenses are too strong on one path, the enemy will choose a different path to your gate(s). They will usually choose a path you do not have ANY defense built on! Grrrrr... This is where multiplayer will shine! Expect to see some very strategic and frantic multiplayer battles! I hope the multiplayer battles are coop! I need help!!! :-)

EDIT: Well, the game finally hit Steam and is getting terrible reviews. It is now listed and a MultiPlayer (MP) game. It is still not playable as a single player experience! Unless you plan on playing MP with a friend, pass on this title. Chaning my review and score to 2 stars.