Bad Bots Demo

The brightest minds of this generation are already trying to warn people about the dangers of artificial intelligence, which is why we should maybe put a little more thought into giant mech development projects. However, science fiction flicks have been predicting a dire end for humanity at the hand of robot overlords for years now, through titles like Matrix or Terminator.

Bad Bots is a retro platformer that challenges you to survive endless waves of evil robots trying to murder you, while also keeping up with a thin plot running in the background. The goal is to destroy the bots and find out what happened to your spaceship’s crew while you were in cryostasis. Naturally, a significant portion of the game is dedicated to the actual shooting, because the reasons why are not very important.

The main character’s name is Sam McRae and he serves on a ship called Titan Hauler, which is as big as it sounds. You barely get any time to admire it, on the other hand, because evil robots are constantly trying to rip your body apart at all costs. The story evolves little by little as you manage to complete the levels, but don’t expect an epiphany by the end, because it remains pointless all the way through.

While the overall idea sounds cool and fun on paper, the product itself is not as exciting, and it actually gets boring relatively quickly. In essence, the shooting part is not very refined and the enemies just clutter the screen in great numbers, with no real strategy or purpose. Moreover, it also gets difficult to make out what happens in some cases, which contributes to the disappointing atmosphere.

Visually, it is obvious that the designers tried to infuse the experience with a retro look, and they managed to do so in some regards. Hence, the 2D engine looks decent and you can admire some interesting environments as you go along. On the other hand, the levels get repetitive after a while and it’s just more of the same over and over again.

All things being equal, maybe Bad Bots had the potential to turn into a fan favorite, with the right approach. However, that’s just speculation at this point because we already have the finished product on our hands, and it is nowhere near as fun as it advertises itself to be.