Shoot Many Robots is a downloadable video game developed by Demiurge Studios and published by Ubisoft for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, and Microsoft Windows via Steam. It is the first original title to be released by the developer previously known for its work on titles such as Rock Band, BioShock, Mass Effect and more.

The game was released in March 2012 for XBLA and PSN, and a month later for Steam. An Android port was released in 2013 on the Play Store. An iOS version was announced in 2013, but as of 2019 has not shipped.GameplayShoot Many Robots is an action platformer game. Players start in the character's RV, where they may equip their character with five items: one weapon that has unlimited ammunition in the game, a special weapon with limited ammo, and hats, pants, and backpacks that can boost performance statistics such as damage given/health or impart special abilities such as slide attacks or a jetpack. They then select a stage to complete, generally following stages in a linear order, but players can return to a previously completed stage.There are two types of stages. The most common requires the players to make their way through a level from start to finish, often ending on a final boss or a large rush of robots.

Checkpoints are laid out through the course, so that if all players die, they will respawn at the last checkpoint passed. The other type of stage is a survival one, where players attempt to withstand several rounds of increasingly difficult enemies; as long as the player makes it through the first wave, they will have succeeded, but gain better rewards for lasting through bonus stages.Players fight off robots by using their weapons, a melee attack, or any special attacks granted by their load-out. The robots have various offensive and defensive mechanisms that the players must work around.

You and three friends can team up to exterminate a zillion robots while progressing through tons of missions, facing uncomfortably epic bosses, and leveling up along the way.” –Xbox.com Description “Shoot Many Robots is a 4-player co-op, run-n’-gun action shooter. Published by Ubisoft, it’s Demiurge Studios’ first original title.

Some will fire special slow-moving but powerful bullets that can only be stopped by melee attacking them back to the robot that fired them. Other robots are nearly impervious to attacks from one side, but are vulnerable to attacks from the opposite side. The player has a health meter that will drain when they are hit. If they take too much damage they will collapse; in multiplayer games, another player can revive them, otherwise they will start back at the last checkpoint. The player begins a level with a number of bottles of beer that can be taken to restore health.

Robots will drop nuts after dying; this is the game's currency which can be used to buy new equipment. Sometimes robots or special boxes will drop crates that contain tickets with which to purchase new equipment, or a large quantity of nuts. These rewards are tied to a player and can only be picked up by that player.

Additionally, power-ups may be dropped by the robots, some giving temporary boosts like extra speed or attack damage, while others restore beer or special ammo. Killing each robot also boosts the player's experience level, which affects what equipment the player will have access to.After completing a level, the players are rated on a star-based scoring system based on the number of nuts collected. To boost their score, players can chain robot kills together to increase a scoring multiplier up to 5x, though players must continue to kill robots to maintain this. The total cumulative stars that a player has earned will influence which levels the player has access too. Players are rewarded with additional nuts based on their relative performance. Once back in the RV, the players can then proceed to use the nuts to purchase equipment that they have obtained a ticket for and within their experience level.The game supports co-operative play between two and four players. Individual player characters are identified by unique colors to distinguish them from others.ReceptionThe PC and Xbox 360 versions of Shoot Many Robots received 'average' reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

VentureBeat said of the Xbox 360 version, 'As team-carnage games go, you'll get some mileage out of this one. Grab a few of your drinkin' buddies, and have yourselves a fun (and cheap) night of gratuitous hillbilly firepower and richly deserved robo-death. Preferably with your beer goggles on.'

IGN said of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, 'the most identifiable problem is the controls,' and called out co-op as a 'chaotic mess.' Video Review and Screenshots.

Demiurge Studios has been around for quite some time, working closely with companies that we adore from a co-op standpoint, such as Gearbox for Borderlands. Recently the studio took a break from working for others and has decided it’s time to make their game - Shoot Many Robots. Their message here is simple: Robots are bad, we should shoot them. In order to deliver that initial message, we get a plethora of tools to help us out aside from plain old guns. It’s Borderlands meets Metal Slug on a drinking binge as Demiurge describes it - and that’s scarily accurate.

When being introduced to the game, Nick and I met the dashing hero Pickles Walter Tugnut in his many costumes. The costumes your character dons changes his abilities in the game, for instance, leather pants allow him to slide because leather pants make you smooth. Or, a kilt allows him to run faster since he’s “running free,” things like that. Each of over 200 items change the abilities of Tugnut, and customizes the way you look to differentiate up to four P. Walter Tugnuts.

As the story goes, the robots were created at one time to save humanity and they went dormant over time. After plenty of rust and decay has set in, the robot apocalypse is triggered when the robots wake up 20 years later and it’s up to Tugnut to shoot as many robots as he can on his way to the robot factory to shut them down. The developer likened Tugnut to a mix between Tallahassee from Zombieland and the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. As such, this gives him great abilities in the game like the ability to punch bullets back at the enemies. While the world may be falling apart, Pickles doesn’t seem all that disappointed that the world has been overrun by robots.

This form of item-based RPG progression really changes things up from the standard class tree RPG. As you gain levels and progress through the game, you’re able to purchase new items from your RV (that’s your home base) that unlock different abilities, and your stats increase automatically. You purchase items using nuts and bolts that are dropped by defeated enemies - so it’s important to make sure you grab every nut or bolt that’s dropped, as the disappear over time. Leave no nut behind we say.

As with the variety of loot expected throughout the game, there were also a variety of robots present that we noticed. A few small fast robots, followed by some suicidal explosive robots and some chainsaw wielding robots that couldn’t be harmed from the front. The amount of creativity and extensive content is already noticeable in this early build.

From the start the game has a bit of a Metal Slug feel to it - a fairly solid platforming feel with plenty of guns and enemies to destroy. Along with your standard story mode, we played a survival mode with infinite waves of robots spawning from places all over the level, and the two players had to survive. As in any good co-op game there is a buddy resurrect system should your health get too low, but building a strategy so you don’t have to use quite so many health packs (aka beers) is also ideal for surviving each wave.

Shoot Many Robots gives you the ability to aim-down your weapons sights by holding a trigger in the game and aiming with the right stick, otherwise your weapon fires from the waist in just about any direction imaginable. This ability gave the game a very comical feel in the way it worked on top of the way Tugnut looked with all of his miscellaneous gear. Obviously, your Tugnut is your own, so you can bring him online to show off to friends in co-op - which we imagine will be a big draw in this game.

In a term coined by the developers, “Co-opetition” is present throughout the game, encouraging players to do their best. You see, the nuts and bolts I mentioned earlier are not only the currency for the game, but they’re also the score for the game. The devs imagine players will be fighting one another to get to these high-scores and money to purchase better loot by playing cooperatively through the game - so, sure we’ve seen this type of co-op before, but we didn’t have a term for it - so co-opetition is born with Shoot Many Robots.

Nick’s Hands-on Impressions:

I knew I was in for something special with Shoot Many Robots when Studio Director Albert Reed donned a plastic army hat to give us our demo. After unlocking everything in the game he lets us have free reign to customize our character - I chose a kilt for speed, a viking helmet for strength, and a beer pack for extra health. My Pickles was a killing armed to the teeth with an assault rifle and a sticky grenade launcher. The robots didn’t stand a chance.

While the game plays a bit like a Contra or Metal Slug title, there is some finesse to be had and strategy to play out. Enemies come in different varieties like your standard fodder, harder to kill enemies that can only be damaged from behind, and of course your bigger bosses. Defeating these in co-op definitely required some strategy, teamwork, and of course plenty of beer.

What’s interesting about the gameplay is that while running and gunning works “ok” - to really get good at killing you’ll need to mix up your skills like the melee bash from the viking helmet or the body slam from the crash helmet along with stopping and “playing the angles” using the shoot down the sight mode. Numerous times my co-op partner and I found ourselves being pinned by rocket shooting robots only to have to quickly revive them to keep going. It was extremely satisfying to just drop in with a body slam to clear the enemies off my partners corpse before resurrecting her.

While Shoot Many Robots seems a ways off, the basis is there for an over the top game that’s grounded in some pretty solid gameplay mechanics. There's no official announced platforms yet, though it seems the team wants it on as many as possible. You’re definitely going to laugh out loud while playing this, you’re definitely going to curse at robots while playing this, and you’ll definitely want to have a co-op buddy (and beers) by your side the whole way.

Remember - leave no nut behind.