PREVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

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PREVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

PREVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

Roboquest is a fast-paced FPS Roguelite that can be played solo or in co-op with two players. Put yourself in the shoes of a high-powered, hyper-mobile robot and prepare to battle as you’ve never fought before. Run through a series of randomly created settings on a strangely familiar Earth. Secrets, improvements, and foes abound in charred canyons and vibrant cities. Choose from an armoury of customised weapons to destroy every laser-shooting bad robot and monster that stands in your way.

REVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

Collect cutting-edge technologies to assist you in moving forward. Upgrades, powers, and basecamp customisation for your character. After each loss, they’ll remain with you to make the following run a bit easier. It’s also one of the roguelites that seem to be popping up all over the place these days. You’ll discover lots of health along the way, but death will stop your adventure and send you back to the beginning. However, you will be able to play with more firearms as a result of this. On one of my runs, I came across a rifle that fires buzzsaws, slicing the heads off enraged automatons like the world’s most unnecessarily vicious tin opener. Sure, there are sniper rifles, shotguns, and handguns, but there’s also a device that launches bouncing spheres of pure heat that bounce from one robot to the next.

REVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

During each run, you’ll sometimes pick up equivalent upgrades that allow you to specialise in one of the four kinds of guns. You can dress yourself as a sniper, a specialist in energy weapons, a machine gunner, and so forth. Later on, you’ll receive some permanent upgrades that give you additional options for whatever weapons you find for each run, but you may also just take anything you like and spec-out as you go.

There are three classes to choose from as well, providing some diversity between runs. The fundamental shooty-dodgy-jumpy action remains the same, but each class is distinguished by a recharge ability and a distinct melee attack. The recon identifies targets for extra damage, the guardian shoots a rocket (which explodes as it should), and the engineer builds drones to battle alongside you. If this seems like it’ll be a lot more beneficial than the other two, you’re right.

Finally, you may improve your base camp permanently to gain benefits and goods that you can utilise in future runs. More weapon options between levels, a spare head to give you another life, a backpack to let you to carry three weapons instead of two, and so forth.

The enemy diversity is also rather good. They all appear to be from the same factory, yet they differ in that they combine talents in ways that need dexterous manoeuvring. Some bots charge at you and explode, while others float and try to shoot you from distance, while yet others lay electrical traps that temporarily disable you. All of this is done in the idea of maintaining continual pressure on you and never allowing you to become too comfortable in your surroundings.

It’s time for some ceremonial whining, because things aren’t always going well here. It’s mostly smooth sailing, but every now and then a shark nudges the boat and tries to sell you a chewed-up Fitbit or something. The bosses are one of these symbolic venomous sharks. Specifically, the first time you come across any of them.

REVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

A mechanical snake skates along rails above an acid pit full of disappearing platforms as one of the bosses. There’s not much that can prepare you for this in the days leading up to it. They’re terrific bosses, and they add intensity to repeated plays, but I’d have loved some kind of notice that the game was about to change into a totally different game for a few minutes, given, you know, the game was about to change into a completely different game for a few minutes.

The game is in good shape. It’s not technically flawed, but it seems a little lacking when compared to other roguelike first-person shooters. There doesn’t appear to be much purpose in playing Roboquest when there are other games on the market, such as Gunfire Reborn, that arguably accomplish the same thing as Roboquest but far better. However, after barely an hour of playtime, I lost interest, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.

The game looks fantastic. The movement is fluid, shooting and weapon switching are enjoyable, and the weaponry are varied and fascinating. The opponent design and battle options, on the other hand, rapidly become a stale experience.

The biggest issue is that the game favours a play style that involves keeping a safe distance from the enemy and not engaging them in meaningful combat. In order to promote up close action and discourage players from the clichéd approach of battling from afar, the creators introduced cells that drop off dead adversaries and vanish if not caught fast, as well as a stomping mechanism where hopping on enemies’ heads causes damage and stuns them. Neither of these options, however, go far enough to make up-close fighting the preferred option. Why would I want to leap on someone’s head when it means jumping in the middle of ten foes, all of whom I could fight from afar?When I choose to do it, I appreciated the fast-paced, up-close battle; but, when my health runs low, I spent the rest of the game simply battling from afar, with nothing to stop me.

REVIEW : Roboquest (PC)

In addition, the foes have a stunning lack of diversity and don’t appear to bring anything new to the fight. Then there are the little men, who have minimal health, shoot slowly, and don’t cause a lot of damage. Then there are the taller ones, who have a little more health, move a little faster, and inflict a little more damage. That’s all there is to it. There are a few additional enemy variations (some fly, others are fixed turrets, and some are tinted red), but they seldom add anything to the gameplay or reward skill. I was expecting that the different zones would introduce new, more intriguing adversaries; but, each zone is just a reskin of the previous foes, with improved damage/health, more movement, and maybe more projectiles. Although I believe the game has a lot of promise, I am unable to endorse it at this time. It might be a great entertaining co-op and solo experience if the fighting gave more incentives for playing up close, the opponents were diverse, and the enemy encounters were likewise diversified (maybe some rooms aren’t just 20 duplicates of three distinct enemy kinds).

It simply feels like a brainless shooter right now.

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