Review: Shoot Many Robots

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in the case of Shoot Many Robots, “they” will have to make an exception. Literally, all you do is shoot robots. The same 4 or 5 types of robots over and over again.  The more robots you shoot, the more nuts you collect and the more you level up and unlock bigger guns and whackier costumes…so you can shoot more robots.  At heart, Shoot Many Robots  is a 2D side scrolling shoot ’em up, but it does attempt to incorporate some RPG-esque elements with its levelling and unlocks system. It also manages to stand out graphically, thanks to a slick layer of cel shaded fore/background 3D prettiness. You play as Walter P. Tugnut, a stereotypical hillbilly, living in his trailer and collecting an assortment of weapons. The robopocalypse has occurred and those pesky metal usurpers have stolen Walt’s RV. Better get it back then…

Actually, you get the RV back after the very first level. From there I’m not sure there is any story or motivation other than killing all the robots, of which there are many. I apologise if I seem to be repeating myself, but the one thing I can take away from playing Shoot Many Robots is that you spend your entire playtime doing the exact same thing over and over and over again. You select a level from the world map located inside Walter’s RV, which shows how many stars you acquired out of five for each respective level.

Later levels are unlocked by earning the appropriate number of stars, which means replaying the levels again once you unlock better weapons to get a higher score and earn more stars. The levels themselves are all very similar. Walk towards the right hand side of the screen, shoot the robots in your way, stop for a big wave, continue towards the right of the screen, boss fight, level complete. Oh and I should mention that boss fights literally take anywhere from five to a full 20 minutes or so to complete. That’s up to 20 minutes of holding down the “shoot” button and some light dodging.

Aside from the fact the the gameplay is entirely mindless, the controls do nothing but compound the issue. How anybody thought that using a single stick control scheme over twin-sticks was a good idea is beyond me.  In Shoot Many Robots you move and aim with the left stick, at the same time. If you want fine aim you hold down the left trigger, but this also stops you in your tracks à la Resident Evil. Being able to move, aim and shoot at the same time, really comes in handy when you are faced with a near endless horde of enemies, unfortunately the controls fight you every step of the way.

There is a multiplayer option, but even playing with friends can’t significantly improve upon the pure drudgery of it all. The sheer number of enemies thrown at you in multiplayer means that you’ll spend more time saving downed teammates than actually progressing through the levels. And if you aren’t able to revive your team and you go down expect to replay lengthy sections of the level, as the checkpoints are few and far between.

The concept for Shoot Many Robots is solid, however the amount of effort put into the title reflects the effort used in creating fun and interesting gameplay.  The soundtrack is fun and the graphics are very nice for a downloadable title, but where it really counts, gameplay, Shoot Many Robots is sorely lacking. Trudging through hours of very similar levels, shooting endless hordes of the same robot who take an increasing amount of time to kill just so I can collect a funny new hat or pants is not how I want to spend my gaming hours. Do you?

Shoot Many Robots

The good Fun with friends.

The bad Boring. Repetitive. Annoying.

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