Robonauts

Played on: Nintendo Switch, via eshop

Robonauts is a basic, but fun, shooter/platformer. It’s a welcome genre combination, and the interplanetary travel adds a lot of depth.

After a short intro setting the scene, the main gameplay mechanic in Robonauts becomes apparent: we’re in outer space, running and jumping around miniature planet-like objects, hopping between them. If that sounds too familiar, fear not: in this game, we’re in just two dimensions, we’re a robot, and we’re shooting everything that moves.

Most of the time I played Robonauts, I had my thumb held on ‘primary attack’. There’s no ammo limit and aiming is automatic, so this just makes most sense. There’s still a lot of tactics involved in positioning and knowing when to switch planets, etc. The game keeps things fresh by adding different challenges from level to level, and there’s enough variation in enemy behaviour to provide an element of strategy.

The automatic aiming occasionally causes a problem, though, leading to shots going in the wrong direction, particularly on very small planets. It can also be problematic when faced with large numbers of adversaries. I guess this all adds to the challenge, but it seems obviously ‘wrong’ on occasion.

What impressed me was that there’s a reasonable amount of content on offer here; I felt there was still a lot more to the game after an hour of play. Although I reached level 7 out of 12, the difficulty ramped up considerably by then, and I only played on the easier of two difficulty settings. There are also a couple of multiplayer modes included.