[h1]Solid Shmup Skirmishes.[/h1]
[b][i]Rogue Robots[/i][/b] is a co-operative, bird’s-eye-view, twin-stick shooter set in a dystopian future. Up to four robots must fight against droves of hostile law enforcement, with the end goal of saving humanity.
It’s a fairly standard looking game. Textures are adequate if repetitive, models are somewhat stylized to make up for their unremarkable complexity, environments have a host of random scenery items that can be destroyed, and there’s a range of decent visual effects during gameplay, to make the combat appear fresh both at the start and several hours later. A lack of audio-visual feedback might cause trouble when it comes to activating abilities, but generally speaking, clarity and quality aren’t a problem.
Menu interfaces feel more underwhelming, with large fonts and simple buttons reminiscent of mobile games, and few options to tweak quality. It’s convenient that performance and stability don’t seem to be an issue: on my [i]Ryzen 9 3900X, 64GB RAM, 1070 Ti, Windows 10 Pro[/i] system, 60fps at 1440p is easily kept. Only notable bugs are a looping sound for certain weapons if firing at the end of a level, achievements taking way too long to register, and some enemies spazzing out due to dodgy pathfinding.
The soundtrack is pretty rockin’, quite literally. A selection of industrial rock serves as the backdrop for the gameplay carnage. It’s just a shame that several tracks barely reach a minute in length, and often seem to abruptly cut out just when you think there’s another half of the song to go – none of this helps with the eventual repetitiveness. For the menus, you have a more modest selection of techno tracks; no less enjoyable to listen to, yet still suffering from the same aforementioned issues. When it comes to sound effects, overall impressions are solid, but most sounds are weak in terms of bass, and levelling seems inconsistent. Doesn’t stop the cacophony of explosions, machine guns and splattering enemies from being their own rewards.
[h3]Save humanity, one bloodbath at a time.[/h3]
On the ground level is where the bulk of the action takes place. You run around randomly-generated cityscapes, either to reach an exit or an objective. Endless hordes of law enforcement chase after your robot to put an end to such activities, bringing with them a decent variety of enemies. You’ll come to encounter flavours of melee rushers, ranged combatants, turrets and even mini-bosses. By far the most annoying foes are the shield-bearing riot cops, who succeed in repelling [i]the aggravating majority of your weapons.[/i] Railguns and energy cannons? Deflectable! Barely a handful of your weapons are an answer for such devious adversaries, and they can just as easily cause self-damage if you’re not careful. At the same time, once you can punch past their defenses (or distract them with abilities or, ideally, a friend or three), they’re as gleefully gibbable as anyone else. Not to mention that all enemies have a hilarious tendency to inflict friendly fire - you can easily end up with the cops doing half of the work for you!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2643395694
[h3]Rewarding vandalism![/h3]
Sooner or later, your robot will accumulate excessive damage and start losing parts. Losing both weapon arms is synonymous with defeat, yet luckily there are cars strewn around each level. Detonating them doesn’t just clear their vicinity of trash mobs, but can also drop items like power cells, health packs and weapons. Dropped weapons are a godsend when your robot is on the verge of destruction, even if the equipment may not be optimal. Actual difficulty, at least in solo play, isn’t very high, so you can go through the whole game without dying once. Don’t be afraid to try out Hardcore difficulty, as you’ll get to the action much sooner and with a better challenge.
[b]Rogue Robots[/b] advertises roguelike elements. Each city has randomly generated sectors containing power plants, items for your robot, death squads or gates. Meanwhile, losing your robot and all of your cells – the currency needed to pay for your equipped parts – would lead to a game over. The idea is that you carefully weigh your equipment balance with the risk of losing all the spent cells on death. Of course, there’s an excess of power plants on the map, and cars blown up during levels can still drop the currency, so… that’s not really a concern. Plus, if you're ever doing badly enough that you're forced to use weaker parts to get by, you're going down a death spiral. Instead, it pays to plan your route and secure a few extra parts for your robot, especially weapons.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2643412097
Every few skirmishes, you can level up your killing machine with a host of abilities, passive or active. There’s sadly no way to see your progress to the next level, outside of the end-of-level results screen. Up to three active abilities can be equipped at once, with effects such as instant healing for you and your team, unleashing killer drones, or deploying shield bubbles. When actives keep you from immediately dying, passives give you the literal firepower to meet and exceed the challenges ahead. Deeper tiers of abilities require investment in prior tiers, and in many cases (such as for the sadly far-too-clunky melee trees) you might have to secure weaker skills to get to the really juicy bits.
You must trek through Helsinki, London and Las Vegas, reach each city’s core and destroy it. Many of the aforementioned robot parts are duplicated between the maps, so you don’t have to worry so much about missing out on parts, especially if you’re diligent with scavenging. The enemies and scenery change subtly between locale, but the gameplay remains absolutely identical. This limited variety of missions ends up hurting the game’s longevity, as it feels like you’re doing the same station hack or stealing the same parts over and over. There ends up being little point in continuing to accumulate cells, outside of getting enough levels to fill up each skill tree.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2643396770
In the end, a first playthrough clocked in at just over three hours on Normal difficulty. Hardcore took just as long; your unlocked parts persist between save files, so getting up to speed wasn’t an issue. Aside from trying to unlock every single part for your machine and chasing after achievements, solo-play is very limited. It’s clearly advertised with co-op in mind, though there’s no native option for network play. Regardless of the number of friends available to play, the cheap price makes it an attractive offer.
[i][b]Rogue Robots[/b] is a satisfactory shoot-em-up. The variety of robot parts and ensuing carnage make up for some annoying enemy designs, its repetitive nature, and leisurely difficulty.[/i]
[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43817454/]Blow up hordes of mobs on your way to [i]Review and Brew,[/i] for great reviews on great games.[/url][/quote]
