Shoot Man Robots is a very large salad. In this salad is four-player co-op, running and gunning action sack-tion, awesome explosions, and hillbilly action. All that covered in a beautiful layer of awesome sauce makes Shoot Many Robots what looks like an amazing game, but upon digging in you’ll find a few long black hairs as well as a fly or two.
Shoot Many Robots puts you in the shoes of P.(ickles) Walter Tugnut, a dumb-as-dirt hillbilly who has been stocking his RV with guns, ammo, and beer for the inevitable robotic apocalypse. While his family laughed at his stupidity and taunted him, well, we see where they are now. As you take control of Pickles, you’ll set out to retrieve his trusty truck, stolen from him by the evil robots that besiege the earth. This is where you learn the basics of Shoot Many Robots; kill robots, pick up nuts for currency, shoot more robots, pick up more nuts, win. The controls are pretty basic as well, with RT shooting, A jumping, and X to steady your weapon and shoot.
Shoot Many Robots starts off in the pretty basic tutorial levels, where you’ll walk some, stop, shoot some robots, get some nuts, and then continue your walking. This is the formula for most of the levels in SMR, you walk for about thirty seconds, the screen stops and you are rushed by a robot horde, which after defeating you’ll move on and repeat until the end of the level. Your most basic weapons are an automatic gun and an RPG, but you can immediately switch these out and purchase pistols, sniper rifles, flame throwers, and almost anything else you can imagine using the nuts robots drop.
Along with weapons, you can switch out your clothes to allow more beer carrying, jet packing, flying, gliding, and other fun things kids’ dream of.
The main selling point in Shoot Many Robots is its co-op. While local is only two-players, four player co-op is available online, but the lobbies are very lackluster. Private matches are available for just you and your friends, while quick matching pairs you up with players of random levels and abilities. In the few times I attempted to quick match, I was put with high levels near the finish of the game while I was still a low-ranking level. This led to me never being able to truly play online, as the quick matches I got into were too hard and the game doesn’t give you the option to start your own lobby.
While Shoot Many Robots is a fun co-op experience, its single player lacks from over-difficulty, and, without the ability to start a lobby, you can’t ever guarantee a multiplayer game on the mission of your choice.
Overall, Shoot Many Robots is a funny, creative, and inventive shoot ‘em up, and Demiurge Studios has certainly put there foot in the door with this one, but, when all is said and done, there’s much better things to spend your Microsoft points on unless you can talk a friend or two into getting it with you. Shoot Many Robots really is a great game, but its single player fizzles out halfway through, and, without a good group of friends, you won’t get your money’s worth. I had very high hopes for this title, but, I unfortunately cannot recommend it.
Damn, was looking at this on Steam, and had high hopes. Hopefully I can wrangle a few people for coop or something…
I could likely be wrangled for some coop action.