I was going to be a doctor once upon a time and all that, so the gameplay immediately appealed to me upon first sighting, and then came the download.
Plot? You guys are the MicroBots, and you've been sent into the body to fight an infection. But not just any old one; a biomechanical infection. Your developing company had sent 'bots into this patient before, but they malfunctioned, kept replicating themselves and are doing a great deal of damage. You're hopefully a new model that's not going to do the same thing.
Microbots are existing things, and medical nanotechnology an actual field of research. But they both involve different sizing.
My first impression when we started MicroBot was that it's Dead Nation in the bloodstream. There are two players on one screen - which I like - the first and optional second player projecting blue and green respectively. The game is a great deal of fun and also an interesting challenge, when learning to operate the dual sticks to move your 'bot and aim weaponry in a way that works for you.
I adore the customisation. You earn more ports for your 'bot as you go, in which you can fit unlocked items for defence, propulsion and attacking. You can also enjoy upgrading the items you already have with found inner-body currency. Experiment to your heart's content really.
What does annoy me about MicroBot, is its apparent inability to save any data for the second player. When we start up the game again, all of my customisation is lost, and I have to swim around slowly behind my partner's character until I earn the cash for a maxed-out paddle or experimentation with the flagellum. He loves the carbon rotors and has about three of them, I'm not personally keen on the driving style they invoke.
MicroBot also doesn't retain all the Bucky Balls we've found, so it seems we have to marathon from beginning to end in one go to get any recognition from it. Maybe we just have a glitchy version, but if not, that was some poor programming.
The fibrillator is a good passive weapon to have at the back as it will zap pesky things rear-ending you as you're trying to shoot. Sentry units and shields are horrendously ineffective at what they're supposed to do. There was another glitch, in this department, in the form of the Player 1 'bot equipping a carbon rotor as the R2 deployment weapon in the auxiliary unit. The hydro-nuke is a decent panic weapon when there's a clusterfuck on screen, and I like clotheslining enemies with the co-op link, although they do know to dodge it.
I don't recommend the atom attractor if there are two players, because it will suck-up all the health to whoever is closest and not necessarily the 'bot who needs it.
The lance is more than useless until it's maxed-out, and then it's good to have on a front port for when the sperm enemies, materialising from what can only be called portable testicles, ram into your face.
The biggest glitch of the game was undoubtedly when we somehow wound-up below the level and could travel really far out of the map, as our phone-taken pictures here demonstrate. It was handy, but unfortunately we couldn't end the level and were forced to eventually quit the game when we got bored.
Don't shoot the healthy bloodstream elements at the beginning like this player does:
MicroBot has its flaws, but it's still a good game with some interesting puzzles, and worth having in my opinion. Great for all-night marathons with a friend, Skips multi-packs and cans of Pepsi.
The only notable piece of music is the track used in the teaser trailer, the rest can get kind of grating. As do the level visuals beyond the bloodstream, they didn't particularly help when I already had a migraine, but they weren't bad enough to make me stop playing. I just needed to pause every now and then.
The ending is fairly ambiguous, as the trophy you'll earn will demonstrate, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. The credits were bland, they could have at least had haematids going by in the background or something. But, as stated, it's a worthy game.
Tips: when you come across a leukocyte, don't shoot it. Instead, let it see you attacking enemies and it will fight them with you.
If the vessels that deposit enemies into the stream flash red when hit, you can destroy them and claim pick-ups. Some can't be destroyed and will keep spawning combatants until you leave the area.
Destroy the objects throughout the game that appear to be dead strung-up leukocytes, and gather pick-ups from them.
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