Thanks to N4G's Indie Month, I was chosen to receive a download code for this game on Steam and I couldn't be happier. Thanks to Cat and all the mods involved for making this possible! You guys are awesome. :D Now that that's out of the way, my review hat is on and here are my thoughts on Drunken Robot Pornography.
Disclaimer: I have played a little over twenty levels of this game which I felt gave me enough experience with the gameplay and general aesthetic of the game to be able to give my thoughts on it.
DRP is a strange little piece of awesome. You play as Reuben Matsumoto, a builder of robots whose former bartender has burned down his bar, hijacked all of his other robots and gone on a rampage. It is Reuben's job with his trusty gun to go and stop this former employee while being heckled by Tim and the press through voice messages. Reuben occasionally speaks to himself and a few levels in gains an AI in his smartsuit named "Suit." The writing in the game plays second banana to the actual gameplay experience, so there are no cutscenes and as far as I've played no characters have been visually presented in anyway, including Matsumoto whose only presence in the game is the bobbing gun in your view. For those of you who love games without cutscenes, this one is for you.
The voice acting that supplies almost all of the story elements are very well done with excellent delivery from all of the actors I've heard thus far but as far as sound goes, the real treat is the music. The music has an intense level of variety. Much of it is futuristic techno and dubstep, but there are other styles such as a Middle Eastern or Egyptian styled music in some levels. There is a lot of neat variety here.
The gameplay is like any classic first person shooter. WASD to move, space to jump, mouse to aim and shoot. The gameplay is especially smooth and because of the game's simplistic graphics, my outdated laptop was able to play it at 60FPS. Throughout the game you can run, moon jump and shoot at just about anything in an arena-like setting. All sorts of flying robots, bullets and bombs are thrown at you and you have to destroy it all within a certain time limit. This mechanic works very well and makes the game very challenging. You can also use powerups such as higher rate of fire, more power and other such little goodies. Once I reached levels 15 - 20 these powerups started to become essential. The game seems only to provide just enough time to win some levels, so the player needs to mad dash for all of the powerups and eliminate small enemies and giant robots called Titans as quickly as possible. And by the way, eliminating a Titan and witnessing its explosion is one of the most satisfying parts of this game.
The game is not without its imperfections. I encountered a couple of instances where Reuben became stuck as I was jumping on top of a portion of one of the arenas. He was unable to move after getting wedged between a wall and a small railing, so I had to figure out how to wiggle my way out and continue, but by then enough time had passed that I could not succeed before the time limit ran out. The graphics are nothing extra special, but be it that this is an indie game, the visuals are serviceable and it is worth noting that the Titan designs are actually quite nice and colorful. Finally, being that this is a bullet hell game, enemies will eventually start pouring shots at you. Lasers, tiny robots, bombs, missiles, power blasts, etc. The whole shebang is here. So it at times becomes difficult to see where you should aim. Jumping also provides more challenge as it's a little difficult to aim your rather floaty jumps and your gun at the same time, however I attribute this to being part of the difficulty in the game's design as oppose to an actual flaw.
One minor nitpick is that I feel like this game could seriously benefit from a two to four player cooperative mode. Being that I have a hard time jumping and shooting at once, it would have been nice to have a friend jump in and join in on the destruction.
To put it simply, Drunken Robot Pornography is a first person shooter meets bullet hell game and a very good one at that. It blends arecade style gameplay with fast, frenetic shooting gunplay that is ridiculously addicting and is mixed quite well with a varied soundtrack, decent 3D graphics and quarky funny little story. It's quite honestly one of the best indie games I've ever played and should definitely be checked out, especially if you're into shooters, bullet hell games or just fast and funny games. It isn't perfect, but it is most certainly not to be missed either. Did I mention that there's a level creator in this game?
If you’re a fan of similar twitch based run and gun games like Painkiller or Serious Sam then the frantic mayhem of Drunken Robot Pornography may well suit you. However the gameplay and the graphics share much in common; both are well polished but incredibly basic and repetitive. Some balancing is required in order to make level difficulty as you progress through the game a bit more linear. The only place where DRP feels as though it’s trying hard is in the humour, which is more often miss than hit.
PAX East has come and gone and it was another great year in the books. This time there was more of a Indie presence than a AAA presence at the show. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily? Will this be the trend for other PAX’s as well? The Gamer’s Lounge had a blast at PAX and here were some of the great highlights
Continue Play's Dale Morgan takes a look at Drunken Robot Pornography, the FPS that's actually a bullet-hell shmup.
"It’s difficult to score a game like Drunken Robot Pornography. It has plenty of content, it looks gorgeous, and when it’s at its best, you can happily become lost in its thrall. It’s just let down by some frustratingly loose movement, and a difficulty level that will occasionally see you hitting a brick wall and forced to replay the same level over and over (and over) again."
Great review! Glad you liked the game.
Oh I won this as well! I thought it was just one person per game :O I really like it as well, I just played it with mouse and keyboard and didn't do very well though. So i'm gonna try it again with my controller and see if I can enjoy it more.
Congrats again and I'm glad you are enjoying the game AND got to write a review!
I really did like this game and loved covering it this month. I would love, love, love this as a multiplayer co-op/competitive game. Perhaps another candidate for #100daysofgaming? I think so!