Last year, developer Psyonix released Arc Squadron, a well-reviewed space shooter with great controls and a load of content. Now almost a year later, the dev has restructured the game, introduced a few balancing tweaks, and made the whole experience free-to-play. This is Arc Squadron: Redux.

As your ship (and the galaxy) is under attack by the mysterious and violent Guardians, humanity needs all the help it can get. You take control of a lowly janitor who finds himself in the cockpit of a space fighter. It's up to your interstellar caretaker to shoot down enemies, chain combos together, upgrade his ship, and fight huge bosses.

Most of the elements which made the original such a joy to play have been kept in tact. To move, you simply glide your finger around the screen. Your weapon automatically fires when you catch an enemy in your crosshair, Tapping the screen will unleash a homing missile, which comes in handy when destroying some of chunkier enemy ships.

Just becuase you have a couple of rockets doesn't mean its going to be plain sailing, though. Many of the larger ships will shoot rockets and balls of plasma at you, and a couple of hits can wipe out your health before you have time to react. Some enemies drop health packs, but these can be hard to grab in the heat of battle.

In-between missions you have the opportunity to upgrade your ships and weapons. The cash you gain from missions and challenge levels is more than enough to upgrade without excessive grind, but there are mods which require real money. Because of this, the idea of paying to get one up on the competition is always at the back of your mind.

Overall, though, Arc Squadron: Redux has made the jump to free-to-play without sacrificing its gameplay or design. The difficulty increases at a steady pace. Flying and shooting is enjoyable, and the pace is broken up nicely with the challenge maps and boss battles. If you're looking to take to the stars and engage in some cost-free space combat, then you could do a lot worse than signing up to the Arc Squadron.