Under the hood of the unique concept is nothing really more than a medicore shoot'em up.
You'll find yourself navigating through the various systems of the human body battling all sorts of germs and potentially lethal infections. This premise in itself is what initially drew me to the game and quite honestly kept me going. If it had been a space shooter instead however, my attention would have been lost not too far in. There is nothing all of that creative about the gameplay itself: you collect orbs and other collectables to upgrade your current weapons and to unlock new ones. This can only be done as certain parts of each level however. One kind of neat thing about customizing your MicroBot is that you are given almost complete control over its capabiities. You can unlock movement parts which completely changes how your ship navigates around the screen. Six out of the five weapon slots that your MicroBot has can be fitted with pretty much what ever weapons or movement part you want. You can do anything from having a ship that is equipped with nothing but gun pats with no movement parts or vice versa...however, I don't recommend either set up (except for maybe the latter for trophy hunting purposes). Despite what movement parts you have equipped, controlling the MicroBot can be a pain at times. This is especially the case in boss battles where quick and accurate manuevers are the very thing that stand between you and victory. Many times I found myself dying because my ship would overract to the direction that I was trying to navigate to and would land it self smack dab into a group of hungry enemies. Overall, the game does have a very fair checkpoint system but the above mentioned control issue can make it seem anything but due to the progress lost over something so annoying.
MicroBot does over a great level of challenge...enough to have a feeling of accomplishment as you progress through the game but nothing really intimidating (like a lot of old school/Japanese bullet hell shoot'em ups). The majority of the game's difficulty revolves around getting surrounded by swarms of reselent enemies at one given time and your ability to endure them. Storytelling is non-existant and I don't really know if it was necessary for the type of game this is. Perhaps more of an in game background as to who's body is your MicorBot in, why, and what happens to it and the person once you defeat the final boss. The game summary seems to imply that there is an ambigious nature to your Microbot...that whether your actions are good or bad to this person's body is questionable. The environments are vivid and very well rendered...though I don't believe they realisticly resemble the actual areas of the human body they are referrencing. The game is WAY too quiet as it is devoid of music for the majoity of the time but the sound effects of in game characters and enviornments are pretty well done. I suppose the missing music was suppose to add a sense of realism to the whole experience, but it ended up reminding me just how important music is in a game as it often times properly sets the mood and holds players' attention along the ride. Many times I found myself getting the gaming equivalent of "highway hypnosis" while playing the game...which is never good.
My Breakdown:
What's Good:
- Nicely rendered enviroments and overall visuals
- Great sound effects
- Great concept
- Great customization options
- Offers a good but balanced amount of challenge
- ^ well done boss fights
- Offers local 2 player co-op
What's Not-So-Good:
- The gameplay can get repetitive
- Zero storytelling or background explaination of anything
What's Bad:
- Lack of music on the majority of the game
- Overly sensitive movement controls...becomes disruptive at times
- The gameplay itself isn't anything innovative....never uses it's unique premise to its advantage
In all, MicroBot ended up being a decent shoot'em up experience for me. It will scratch the itch of fans of the genre looking for something to play but I can't say that would recommend it to anyone else. I just don't see too many people having the patience to hang with the game to the end.