It’s science vs the supernatural, electricity vs the squishy cosmic horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos in Tesla vs Lovecraft!

Really, it’s just an excuse for an incredibly intense, beautifully colourful twin stick shooter with roguelike elements.

You begin each stage as Nikola Tesla, safe for at least a few seconds in a super powerful mech. Once that disappears, you’re on your own against the legions of squishy, deadly monsters that originally emerged from the mind of HP Lovecraft.

It controls like a dream, being incredibly responsive; there’s not many buttons to get to grips with either, as you have your primary weapon, limited power up weapons and a teleport.

Each level takes place on a suitably dark and gloomy backdrop that nonetheless comes alive with bright neon explosions of electricity, bullets and bad guys.

When you level up, you get a choice of random perk; this will see you powering Tesla up over the course of each stage, which tend to last a few minutes at a time.

Power ups appear on screen and you helpfully get indicators as to where they are; these can change your primary weapon, give you some limited use secondary offensive capabilities or even build up your mech, which you can deploy again once assembled.

Occasionally, Cthulhu statues appear and cause enemies to pour forth from their dark dimension until destroyed, but they’re reasonably easy to deal with until the latter stages of the game.

Destroy a set number of enemies, which attack in impressively voluminous swarms at times, and you can move on, with bosses to break up the usual rhythm at certain points.

You’d think that it’d get repetitive and indeed, the core gameplay doesn’t really change (bosses aside) over the entirety of the game.

However, the core gameplay loop is so finely tuned and the audiovisual aesthetic so brilliantly done – including an absolutely superb, pulse pounding soundtrack – that it never seems to stop being fun.

It’s incredibly addictive stuff; despite a thin, not particularly well told storyline, it’s clear that the gameplay is king in Tesla vs Lovecraft.

It’s smooth, incredibly action packed and almost unbelievably addictive. Once you pick up Tesla vs Lovecraft, it’s incredibly hard to put down.

Though I initially played it on a desktop PC, it’s Steam Deck compatible and is the perfect game to play on the handheld.

The stars are most definitely right with this one.