Shoot Many Robots Review

Shoot Many Robots is a that, well, it does what it says on the tin. Therefore, rather than making you chuckle at a pun that revolves around shooting and/or robots, I’ll just crack on with the review! (In other words, I couldn’t think any /sadface)

You play as ‘Pickles’ Walter Tugnut, a paranoid redneck that has stockpiled beer, guns and funky hats patiently awaiting the robot apocalypse. Luckily for Pickles, the robot apocalypse is exactly what’s on the menu and boy, do you know it!

This is a 2.5D side-scroller and aesthetically, I like it - the explosions are explosion-y, the robots, robot-y and the patriotic manliness, abundant. Each level is fairly samey but in a post-robot-apocalyptic game, I suppose you would expect the levels to look fairly robot-y and fairly apocalyptic, so there was no surprises there.

So what do you really need in a robot apocalypse? An awesome soundtrack for mindless slaughter? Exactly! And luckily, Shoot Many Robots prevails and gives you exactly this. It can get a bit repetitive at times but it’s okay, you can drown it out with robot screams and cannon fodder!

In most games, you will either be given a character to play with or given the choice of a class. Shoot Many Robots has combined these by supplying you with the character (Pickles) but also given you the huge arsenal and clothing to customise him with. Each item gives Pickles different plus or minus points. For instance, if I wanted to play as a tank-type roll (takes a lot of hits but deals less damage), I would tailor him with items that would give him lots of health, and items that would reduce damage taken. This also means that I can switch between ‘classes,’ if that ‘class’ isn’t exactly working for me or I fancied something new, I can purchase new items. You purchase items using Nuts which you collect from killing robots and completing levels. You unlock new items by completing levels but you can also unlock them by picking them up from boxes in-game. These either pop out of destroyed robots or are hidden throughout the levels, waiting for you to find them!

One very big disappointment for me in this was that you can only have one character. There are no slots for multiple users or characters. Sure, you can change your character’s items and replay levels but if, say, my brother wanted to play the game, but I didn’t want him playing on my character, he couldn’t start a new one. I’m still hoping that this gets brought in but at the moment, quite a letdown.

The controls are fairly simplistic - use the mouse to aim and shoot/melee and the keyboard to do everything else. The controls can also be changed so you can fit them to how you like to play (a choice which is slowly vanishing from games, so I was pleased to see this included.) The one let down I had with the controls was lack of controller support. With side-scrollers, I tend to prefer to use my Xbox 360 controller than my keyboard and mouse. However, I have not heard fantastic things about the controls for the 360 version of game. It would have been nice to have the choice though rather than not including it at all.

The itself isn’t all that long. A casual gamer could probably knock out the normal difficulty in around 6 - 8 hours. However, once there is a hard and insane difficulty which take specific levels from normal and, well, makes them more difficult! These are still fun to play through but I felt myself getting slightly more bored while essentially replaying levels. I did, however, feel myself compelled to continue playing the for a few reasons. 1. I felt I needed to obtain all of the weapons and clothing possible, 2. I felt I needed to beat my friends scores on levels (a leaderboard is shown at the end of every level), 3. I wanted to reach level 50 and 4. I REALLY WANTED TO BEAT MY FRIENDS SCORES! All of these reasons kept me trooping on through the insane levels when all I felt like doing was crawling into a hole, pulling myself into the fetal position and crying myself to sleep.

One big plus for Shoot Many Robots for me was the multiplayer aspect. It supports 4 player co-op where you can jump into a friend’s or friend(s) can jump into yours. This makes certain levels much more enjoyable and partially easier to obtain 5 stars! The only letdown was the lack of communication in multiplayer. You can voice chat but there is no text chat support. Sure, it is a very manic where you are constantly on-point and so wouldn’t really have time to type out a message or anything but I would still have liked to see it implemented.

All in all, Shoot Many Robots is a fantastic in my opinion. It’s entertaining and gives new life to the side-scrolling, platform genre where previously, I hadn’t seen much. The competitive nature is subtle but there, and the comedy mixed in really made me laugh at times. I’m hoping there will be controller support and multiple save slots in the near future but don’t let these detract from the experience that is Shoot Many Robots!