Demiurge Studios and Ubisoft have teamed up to create the ultimate apocalyptic, and R/V loving sidescrolling shooter where humanity is attacked by robots, a whole lot of them, which require an equal amount of shooting. The game is called Shoot Many Robots which pretty much tells the entire story and that is not a bad thing. Sure, the lack of deep plot could be a point of criticism but quite frankly, it would take away from the a game that doesn’t take itself to seriously – and I like it that way.
When I first played Shoot Many Robots at PAX East in 2011, it was one of my favorite games at the show. I remember not being able to wait for the game proper to finally come out. The day has finally come and Shoot Many Robots has released, much to my pleasure. Demiurge has partnered with Ubisoft to build an odd and irresistibly charming shooter in the classic sense. Shoot Many Robots lives in a world where a ridiculous amount of machines, ranging from small to gigantic, are attacking the world as we know it – except that this world is defined by redneck inspired style and one of my favorite parts of the game.
The game itself has a rather simple, yet satisfying formula. Shoot Many Robots is build on a classic formula which will have you and up to three friends fight off various robotic enemies. Players can level up, loot and buy equipment throughout the game. All customization is done in a hilariously decked out R/V with country music playing in the background, I love the attention to detail Demiurge put into crafting Shoot Many Robots. The game is beautifully rendered and animated – it truly feels like the studio wanted to make this a finished product and has mostly succeeded. Shoot Many Robots has a large amount of enemies and pretty much all of them are fun to beat the crap out of. The enemies range from small foot soldier types, to mini bosses all the way to gigantic monsters.
While I am absolutely in love with the backdrop, art style and humor of Shoot Many Robots, I have one major concern. For a game that aspires to be a classic sidescrolling shooter it has one major flaw. The game is not using both thumbsticks. If you have played Shoot ’em ups before you know this, a game in this genre really requires the use of both sticks, one being the directional input and the other the trigger and gun pointer. The problem isn’t that I mind having to play the game with one stick, it is the fact that there are often too many robots to handle using the current control scheme. I was not able to jump in one direction and fire in another since both inputs are mapped to the same stick. Of course there is a rather easy way to alleviate the control issue, simply ask three of your bestest buds to fight in the robocalypse with you which makes it a lot easier to control the robot crowds and have fun leveling as well as looting.
When all is said and done, I have to say that Shoot Many Robots has its flaws with the controls of the game but it simply does not taint my experience with the game enough to downgrade it significantly. This beautifully crafted sidescrolling game has pretty much everything I expect in a title of this genre. Shoot Many Robots sports a great enemy variety, coop multiplayer with wave-based levels as well as score multipliers and over the top action that should get everyone’s heart beating a little faster – oh, and slaughter a ton of metal slugs!
Score: 8.0 / 10
Shoot Many Robots was developed by Demiurge Studios and published by Ubisoft for Xbox 360 on March 14th. A retail code of the game was provided to us by Ubisoft for reviewing purposes.
