Robokill – Rescue Titan Prime : “Dual Stick” Shooter Mayhem for the iPad!

Robokill - Rescue Titan Prime 1

Robokill - Rescue Titan Prime 1

Robokill – Rescue Titan Prime [rating: 4/5]

Robokill, as the name suggests, is a “shmup”. When I heard about it, the name and the gameplay reminded me of Robotron; one of the arcade classic shoot-em-ups of my era.

Robokill has a very pretty CG trailer, which shows you turning up at a mothership where you will carry out your mission. Which is to liberate “Titan Prime”, the mothership that is overrun by enemy robots!

The trailer actually bears very little resemblance to the game, but it oozes quality and that tends to suggest that the game should look and sound good too.

Robokill is a top down view dual-stick shooter, where each level makes up a room. You control a combat robot that you can upgrade and customize to some degree. Each room is filled with different types, and amounts of enemy robots, crates and machinery. And you blast away at anything that moves, and anything that doesn’t. Simple!

Shooting enemy robots is obviously the aim of the game. But so is collecting power ups and money from crates and other stuff you shoot up. As well as gradually exploring all of the mothership with the aim of taking it back under your control.

When you die, you will be teleported back to a start point, and lose some of the territory you have claimed, which will then be repopulated with robots. So it’s a good idea not to die too often! Oh, you also lose money for getting fixed up after a “death”.

Control is via two onscreen joypads, which you move around with your fingers. Learning to control dual-stick shooters can take a minute or two. But you soon master it. It’s a bit like patting your head with one hand, and then rubbing your tummy with the other!

Robokill - Rescue Titan Prime 2

The position of the joypads on screen is not optimal for the size and shape of the iPad. And all the extra space they take up, along with a border round the entire playing area is a bit of a waste of space on the iPad’s screen overall. Hopefully the developers will look at floating controls in a future release.

There are some buttons in between your joypads to allow you to get a map overview of rooms you have visited. Some are marked with hints as to what is in them. You can also manage your robots inventory nice and easily by dragging equipment around in an inventory panel, moving it from and to your robots various accessory slots.

Early in the game you start out with weaponry which is fairly basic. But through power-ups and other items you collect, you are able to enhance / upgrade these weapons, and also provide yourself with temporary special abilities; improved shields, better weapon effectiveness etc.

Robokill boasts more than 450 deadly levels, and in excess of 50 enemies. The variety of enemies is certainly there, and you will learn to employ some different techniques to deal with how they move or group. Some are small and fast and free roaming. Other launch missiles, some are perhaps slower but pack more of a punch when they shoot. Quite a few come from hives which also need to be destroyed to stop more and more enemies spawning.

The 450+ levels are individual rooms on the ship. So in effect it’s a 450+ wave shoot-em-up with some doors and stuff…

There are some basic puzzle elements to the game. By that I mean rudimentary things like collecting conspicuously marked “keys” to open “doors”. And learning to use teleports which can get you from one place to another quickly. Oh, and areas in some rooms where you can fall. But that’s about as complex as it gets. “Doors” seem to be more about controlling how the map unfolds and the difficulty level of the game progresses.

Robokill - Rescue Titan Prime

Visiting shops to upgrade your gear, using cash you pick up, is fun, and the alien shopkeeper who deals with you is refreshingly dismissive. You are also given guidance as to mission directives from time to time with popup comms messages from your overlords.

Where Robokill excels is visually, and in the games flow. You are always under pressure, and yet will mostly find enough power-ups and stuff to keep you going, and enough cash to use to upgrade your robot. The gameplay remains fluid throughout, which helps immersion. And the sounds effect and graphics for explosions are pleasing.

So, Robokill is a great little romp. At $7.99 I personally think it is fairly priced. But there are a lot of other titles out there that compete with it for far less.

Nonetheless it’s a fun, sometimes frenetic “shmup”. And I had fun with it.

Pros

  • Nice Visuals.
  • Good Pacing.

Cons

  • It’s just a “shmup”.
  • Gameplay area seems small on the iPad.

$7.99 (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released: Nov 05, 2010
Version: 1.1
1.1 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
31.2 MB
Language: English
Seller: Wandake LLC
© 2010 Wandake, LLC
Rated 9+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Requirements:Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later

Note : If you want to try Robokill out online as a Flash game, you can do so here

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