Robot boss rush is more than meets the eye

Don't let the cartoony looks and happy twang of the soundtrack fool you, Mechstermination Force is one of the toughest and most frustrating games I've played this year, and I love it.

This is a boss rush game, meaning each and every stage is a fight against the kind of massive, ruthless, multi-phase brute that you usually don't find until the end of the last level. You need to learn and avoid their attacks, shoot off their protective casing and then destroy all their power cores (some can be shot, but the red ones need to be struck with your melee weapon at close range) to win.

This is just the tutorial bot. They get much bigger.

The setup is the same each time, but the huge and surprising range of robotic enemies — from a burrowing centipede to a huge ape that becomes a crocodile — means you can't just carry the same strategy from one to the next.

This work of masochism and funny robots comes from the mind of Swedish developer Betril Horborg, who you may know as the creator of the great but often overlooked Gunman Clive. Like those games, Mechstermination Force has a simple and endearing look but an unmistakably retro feel, and will speak to those who like to throw themselves at a challenge again and again until they understand it well enough to complete it blindfolded.

The game wears its side-scrolling shooter influences on its sleeve, from Mega Man to Contra, and blasting your gun in all directions while running and jumping to avoid fire feels great. Bosses will frequently fill the entire screen with bullets and energy beams, or punch and kick with their massive limbs in ways that seem unavoidable, but there's always a way through if you're persistent. But then, of course, the massive humanoid you've been fighting splits down the middle and becomes two horrifying shambling robots with totally new attack patterns for you to memorise.

The real frustration comes in once you know exactly what you need to do, and can make it flawlessly through the early stages of the boss, but you can't convince your thumbs to get those few final hits in. It's maddening, but ultimately very rewarding when you set off that final big explosion.

Between fights you can purchase upgrades like extra health or acquire new weapons including a flame-thrower or endlessly reflecting laser (my favourite). You also periodically get new gear that can really change things up. For example after you get the magnetic gloves early on, some of the bosses become massive moving stages you need to scale or infiltrate to get to the cores.

If the frustration gets too much you can return to previous levels and beat up on old bosses for cash, then use it to buy some helpful upgrades or temporary health. You can also invite a second player for co-operative fights, which makes the game quite a bit easier — since you can focus fire at two places, have two sets of health and can scoop up more money — though having two little people on the screen can also make the action even harder to track than usual.

Silly though it is, I also appreciate that the game lets you choose a character from a lineup of four, each one a mish-mash of side-scrolling shooter heroes twisted to be a little more inclusive. I especially like the eyepatch-wearing soviet military woman, and the Rambo wannabe with the notably flamboyant stance who inexplicably hits the cores with a guitar.

Overall this is a challenging but uncomplicated game, laser focused on delivering that feeling of being small and overwhelmed before working your way up to single-handedly destroying an enemy 100 times your size. But the difficulty is balanced by some brilliant designs, which occasionally had me giggling out loud, and an overall charming package that's much friendlier than the robots it houses.

Mechstermination Force is out now for Switch (reviewed) and PC.

Source: Read Full Article