Mothergunship Review: A tale of mechs and many machine guns

Although not officially marketed as one, Mothergunship is the latest attempt to create a roguelike first person, something that many other games have failed.

In the last few years we have had Strafe, City of Brass, Immortal Redneck and even more come to mind. Although all had different levels of success and critical reception, they all lacked important elements that make this genre so enjoyable in other formats.

The developers of this game have themselves tried the feat before with their previous title Tower of Guns, and their second attempt is much better, but still lacking.

Mothergunship has a surprisingly rich story that is a little more complex than the usual roguelike.

It is a day in the future and the Earth has been occupied by the alien base holder and his fleet of invaders. You are part of the resistance sent on a mission to destroy smaller ships to find information and resources, hoping to eventually win the day.

The acting voice here is acceptable, but the writing really lets the characters down. It's a little raspy and you'll find yourself jumping most of the time. In the end, this is not important and it ends up as a small facade for filming.

The visual gags, on the other hand, had some sincere laughs on our part. Some missions will trigger changes in your starting area that remain between missions, and they are always welcome.

As you will see in the first 10 minutes, we noted above: awakened and given a mech. As you start with two metal fists, you can soon tie a variety of guns to both arms using a modular weapon arming system.

It is the heart and soul of the Mothergunship and the main point of differentiation when it comes to the exception that several cannons can occupy the same space and that their guns must always do facing the front, you can build what you want if you have enough coins

five gatling guns on each arm? Go from the front. What about multiple cannons that launch a dozen spikeballs that then activate the lava mines? Or, our favorite, the overpowering "barrel barrel" that fires a rocket larger than most enemies. It's slow, but you can add capital letters – modifiers that apply to the entire barrel – this can make it faster.

Although all of this sounds good, the key part we mentioned is that you must have all the pieces. The game would not really be a challenge if you could erase each piece with just one mouse click.

The first limit is energy. Each weapon starts from a single reserve of energy, each barrel and cap you add increasing the amount of energy that will be consumed each time you pull the trigger. You could do something monstrous, but you will run out of breath after firing once, then you will have to wait helpless to reload.

Although this sounds like a natural control and balance system, you have very little opportunity to push against the limit. In trailers you will see crazy weapons on the screen, but building these ADMs is rarely an occurrence, and is not the best strategy to win.

Each mission has a limited inventory to reduce your firepower initially. When you defeat the enemies, they will earn you money that you can trade against more coins, which will increase your arsenal as the game progresses.

Unfortunately, this is random. Sometimes there will be too many stores and not enough money to get something exciting. Sometimes you will have all the money you could want, but only a store or two with nothing interesting in them.

But even when the stars line up and there 's a good mix of money and shops, you will find that dozens of weapons on each arm do not have any. is not the best way to go. This is because guns and caps are scarce, with the best options costing more money.

When you walk into a shop, you can buy two machine guns for a few pieces, but the upgraded version for four times the price is,

Sometimes buying weapons is not even the best way because you will need expensive caps instead.

All of this leads you to do fewer guns and optimize your hunt. for higher level components. It seems that this game gives you a really cool system, but some parts of the gameplay prevent you from becoming too crazy.

As you advance through the game, you have more slot machines and you have a good arsenal, but you feel like being restrained most of the time.

The problem with the Mothergunship's unique weapon system continues at the other end of the barrel, like the enemies you face

Like Tower of Guns, a lot of enemy robots that you will fight are fixed turrets that you just need to flank and destroy.

Monsters in motion are a little more interesting to fight, you need good old machine gun and kite, but they make your weapons light and boring.

The weapons in this game are exceptionally well animated with a lot of moving parts and sound effects, but when they have an impact on the enemies, they lose all meaning. Power. All you get in response is the aggressive robots that flash to indicate damage, and sometimes a little recoil if it's a small robot that is not anchored to the ground.

Fortunately, there are some things to compensate: moving is fast and smooth, your mech upgrades are boring (more HP, more energy, less damage, etc.) but you push to play more, and the artistic style is excellent, especially in the finer mechanical details and

When you put it all together Mothergunship is a fun game that we recommend, especially for roguelike fans, there is just a few design decisions that keep it from being exceptional.

Developers have promised updates and more content in the future, with an online cooperative scheduled for August. There is every chance that our complaints will be resolved by then, but we must review what everyone will get at launch.