MicroBot (Xbox 360)

MicroBot is the name of a twin-stick shooter game for Xbox 360 and PS3, but it is also the name for the hero of that game and its villain. The antagonistic MicroBot is actually the predecessor of the one you’ll be playing as, that microscopic machine created with the idea it could enter the human body and directly eliminate harmful microbes. Unfortunately, that MicroBot model went rogue, beginning to take control of viruses and bacteria as it begins to roboticize a human from the inside. MicroHexon Research quickly set about making a new MicroBot to go in and purge the previous one’s influence, the game beginning as you take command of the tiny robot right as it rides an injection straight into the bloodstream.

 

MicroBot does take place inside a human body, but how much of an impact this has on what you’re seeing can vary quite a bit. Across the game’s 20 levels you’ll head to different areas as you continue to tear down your predecessor’s work, and the first few stages do feel well-rooted in the idea you’re inside a living organism. Not only do the color choices and environmental design make it clear you’re in the bloodstream, but you’ll have moments where you have to fight against the fluid as it tries to push you or blood cells will block shots as you go up against the hostile microorganisms inhabiting the veins. When you reach Sector 2 though and enter the bones, the visuals shift and it can start feeling more like you’re flying through a cave, especially as you do things like blast what looks like webbing to make “pillars” collapse. The roboticization of the human system does mean the later levels can at least get away with more heavily shifting their designs to cybernetics, but the game starts to lose the feeling of being in a human body as even decent ideas like watching signals travel across brain neurons is just a fancy way of depicting you activating the same mechanical switches you have encountered all throughout the body.

The weak conceptual follow-through may lessen the effectiveness of this sci-fi shooter, but MicroBot definitely cares most about the action and your microscopic machine is quite adjustable. The MicroBot you play as has a few attachment points where you’re free to place the weapons you desire to use, your movement controlled with the left control stick and your weapons are aimed through the right stick. What these weapons entail can vary quite a bit, starting off as essentially machine guns for energy shots but you can eventually get homing missiles, explosive blasts, and even spikes that make ramming into enemies a possible battle prospect. However, while this opens things up to outfitting yourself with a good mix of effective weapons, those same spots that can hold weapons are also where you attach your means of propulsion and your defensive tools. If you want to spill acid behind you to discourage chasers or activate a sentry that rotates around your vessel, you’ll need to sacrifice a slot for them, but thankfully propulsion isn’t so demanding. One good paddle, booster, or other means of locomotion is often enough to move quickly and fluidly, although they do gradually get outclassed by later acquisitions. There are many times the fluid you’re suspended in might push against you, but keep upgrading your propulsion and replacing it with new finds and the only times it will really be an issue are moments where fighting the current is a part of a specific navigational challenge.

 

The MicroBot can also equip special powers like a harpoon for pulling in foes, a bomb, or a virus you can use to turn enemies to your side briefly, meaning you can end up packing quite a range of tools as you get deeper in the game and unlock more equipment slots for your machine. Getting new weapons often involves defeating enemies who use them first though, but this may not be as daunting as it sounds since they don’t make the best use of them. The microbes and machines found throughout the game’s infected human systems not only look pretty similar to each other but fight rather similarly as well. They’ll gradually get a bit stronger, get a bit more aggressive, and come in bigger groups, and there are definitely some more unique late game additions like foes who can briefly disappear from sight to avoid your shots, but a lot of the times you deal with danger by holding your right control stick in its direction and wait for your weapons to wear it down. There’s definitely a great deal of active dodging involved, and in some areas you have things like laser fences that can devastate you if you’re forced into them or don’t get your timing when moving through them correct. On the other hand, MicroBot does boil down to a lot of flying into a new space, opening fire until the opposition present stops getting replaced with reserves, and then moving along to do that again. Thankfully, you can hold down a button to pull up a map that fills in automatically to avoid the rather samey environments stymieing you by blending together, the map giving you the general sense for the layout but leaving general navigation up to you to figure out.

The human body does hide a lot of secrets and helpful pick-ups in MicroBot. It’s not uncommon to find a small side path that can reward you with oodles of Atoms, this being the currency needed to upgrade your weapons to make them more potent. Atoms can come out of defeated enemies and are also your source of healing, enemies often abundant and aggressive enough that getting complacent can get your robot wrecked and sent back to the last checkpoint. Side paths can sometimes be little puzzles involving switches or spotting the right paths to take, not usually a complicated trial but one that can break up the frequent fighting a touch, and there is something called a BuckyBall to find in each level to serve as an optional collectible to shoot for. Unfortunately, MicroBot also weighs the aid of a white blood cell rather highly, these able to fight enemies by your side but they’re slow and rather poor at following in the intricate areas you navigate. Fighting your way to a white blood cell can feel like a weak reward since it might not even effectively follow you back.

 

MicroBot does top off each major Sector of the human body with a boss fight and these can often muster up a more potent fight, although they can also show how much more engaging the game could have been if you more regularly encountered enemies that move in interesting ways or have the chops to fire back at you rather often. Your robot can only dodge so well though, something that can be a barrier to success in the final fight if your own weapons do not have a high damage output, but even your basic starting guns can be rather potent after upgrades so it only feels like difficulty walls will really hold you back if you spread your spending across your weapons too much or feel the need to search every nook and cranny and find some of the game’s harder battles. Keep on the power curve well and you’ll be able to move about with relative ease and conflicts will ask you to stay mobile but not too mentally involved, meaning it’s not too hard to glide on through this short four hour experience without anything too aggravating, but also not anything too exciting either. The survival angle of challenge mode is hardly the extra life this game needed to try and invigorate it, although its two player co-op at least makes it seem like a fine bit of background activity if you’re more interested in talking with your companion than having to focus hard on the game at hand.

THE VERDICT: MicroBot has big ideas but their range is rather small. The human body setting comes out swinging as you’re fighting the bloodstream and weaving through cells to take on microbes and machines, but while it can roll out some complications and make the enemies a bit tougher over time, it doesn’t force you to vary your play style much. You’ll still need to weave around to survive and some side content pulls you away from the similarly designed conflicts from time to time, but your range of weapon and tool options do not feel like they’re up against something that properly tests their mettle. MicroBot can put up a fight and send you back to checkpoints from time to time, but it still feels like a game you coast through, the lightly evolving opposition keeping you from zoning out as you play but not demanding enough to make this short adventure rise above its small size.

 

And so, I give MicroBot for Xbox 360…

An OKAY rating. While it would have been nice to receive some motivation to explore the breadth of your MicroBot’s range of options, this shooter at least avoids being so demanding that you would come to resent its often complacent area designs. It never truly settles down and stops introducing ideas, but they’re such light shake-ups and your interactivity might have been limited because the game couldn’t guarantee your robot’s makeup. It seems the game was afraid to necessitate much beyond the gradual rise in power and propulsion to keep up, so while you can get a combo like harpooning enemies and pulling them towards spikes on your vessel, it’s often wiser to literally stick to your guns since they’re plain but consistently effective. One reason the game’s design still may be acceptable despite being unexceptional though is that you can slip into the repetitive but involved action. You can’t just sit back and blast everything to bits and when you start to get complacent, that’s when an enemy shifts up its design some and demands your attention anew. MicroBot’s bosses aren’t always hard but are often at least interesting conceptually and when something a bit more durable demands your attention it can muster a surge of active engagement in the battle, the side content’s concepts like laser mazes and switch puzzles also necessitating a bit more mental energy that could have been maintained better if the game sprinkled them throughout better.

 

It is a shame the host body you’re exploring in MicroBot becomes more of a backdrop rather than a conceptual playground the deeper in you get. At the same time, perhaps the designers were a little shy in pushing the envelope more since it can often be the robotic enemies and obstructions that start mustering up new concepts better than the biological side of this adventure. What dangers do arise over the game’s Sectors make this a serviceable twin-stick shooter with little goals like gathering Atoms and finding Buckyballs to shoot for, but the systems it presents are not implemented strongly enough so fighting robots inside the human body ends up less thrilling than it sounds.