Metal Shoot Review

First Impressions

Firstly, Metal Shoot does exactly what the name suggests. You little bot protagonist, Boltie will spend most of the game eliminating with extreme prejudice an army of problematic enemy robots who have invaded his base.

The game is yet again an easy completion for Gamerscore if that’s what you’re into. As the full cheevo list can be completed by as early as stage 15 of the 20 stages. So not even a full playthrough of the game is required.

Plot

The space station your bot serves on has suddenly becomes infested with a army of robots intent on causing havoc. As Boltie, it’s up to you, and you alone, to single-handedly strike back using just his wits, a laser cannon arm and intense platforming skills to secure the base to save the day.

Gameplay Overview

When you start, the main menu has three selections, these being ‘Start’, ‘Settings’ and ‘Credits’. As you expect, Settings shows the options of ‘Music’, ‘Sound’, ‘Shake’ and ‘Vibration’ and selecting each will give you the option to increase or decrease the music or sound, or turn the shake and vibration on and off. Credits shows, well, the game’s credits and looking at them, the game was made by a very small team of just three people.

As stated earlier, the game itself has 20 stages in total, not a lot to be sure and if you’re going for the maximum Gamerscore of 3000G for this title you only have to play and complete to Stage 15.

The gameplay is presented as a straightforward ‘run-‘n’-gun’ style with simple jumping elements were Boltie will jump, shoot and blast his way through the simple platforming stages collecting items as he goes.

Your little bot is controlled by the standard left thumbstick, with ‘A’ to jump (no double jump, not that it’s needed or missed), ‘X’ to shoot and ‘B’ to drop through certain platforms to travel below.

Collision detection with the enemy bots is good and the shoot mechanic feels like the shots do connect. The game reminds me of a very simple, indie ‘Megaman’ inspired platformer. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the game is incredibly pick up and play but the controls, especially the jump/shoot mechanic is sluggish in places. Also, there’s no directional shoot ability, such as up or down or diagonal fire so you’re required to get level on a platform with an enemy bot in order to shoot them. Enemy bots take between one hit for the small flying bots, to up to six hits for the bigger bots to destroy.

Boltie has a little health bar in the top left of the screen which allows him to survive two hits, with the third making him explode adorably. Health can be replenished by collecting life capsules what strangely look like ‘power pills’ from the 80s era of gaming that are located in your path through each stage.

Each stage has three Stars to find and collect before you can find the end of stage teleporter and exit. The stages are filled with a small selection of enemy bots that patrol the platforms such as Hover Bots, Strutbots, Hammerstalkers and Mortarmaws. And no, I’m not making these robot names up.

Gold gears can be collected on your journey but they don’t really seem to amount to anything more than an item to collect, as if the developers just needed an item for the character to collect as an additional thing to do as you make your way through the stages. Still, the compulsion to collect everyone I came across was strong during my run so I guess it worked as a gameplay mechanic in my case.

Presentation

Metal Shoot is a colourful, pixellated romp through an 80s and 90s inspired platform space base. As you progress you’ll encounter various robots patrolling the stages in your way, along with laser beam floor sections and moving platforms taking you up and down the stages. The gameplay loop is simple and within a few minutes of jumping round you’ll have the hang of it no problem. One jingle plays throughout the game and the only sound effects you’ll hear is from when you collect an item, fire your laser arm cannon or enter and exit a stage.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, Metal Shoot is a game that doesn’t require you to think about it whilst playing. If you’ve been playing video games as long as I have, then the gameplay loop is almost instinctual, and the developers seems to have gone to a lot of effort to make the game as accessible and straightforward as can be. The term ‘retro’ springs to mind during my time with this title and while the game could easily be classed as repetitive, I did find enjoyment in my playtime with it. The difficulty level remains the same throughout the whole game with no increasing spike, which is great for younger players, but not much of a challenge for seasoned gamers with the whole game being just short enough to not get boring before the experience is over.

However, for only £ 4.19 on the Xbox Store, there’s some short-term fun to be had playing. Just don’t expect hours of gaming goodness as with only 20 stages to play though, you can complete the whole game in under 40 minutes (although you do get a special ‘Congratulations, Hero!’ message at the end for all your effort as well as a thank you for saving the day). Great one for Achievement Hunters though.