What occurs if, as an alternative of being a squid child, you’re a Roomba whose solely purpose is to color the turf? Splatterbot solutions that query on this fast-paced enviornment splatfest.
You management a cleansing robotic, however as an alternative of cleansing, you’re messing up the joint. It appears like upfront I needs to be clear that Splatterbot isn’t an enormous recreation, very a lot by design.
The primary and solely focus of this recreation is to cowl as a lot of the world in your color paint. You do that by leaving a path of paint behind wherever you zoom. With 2 to 4 robots racing to cowl probably the most house, it’s so simple as the participant with probably the most paint on the ground wins. There are not any huge season passes or mountains of unlockables right here; it wouldn’t work for a smaller scale recreation corresponding to this. As you play extra matches, you unlock beauty objects, both one thing to put on in your bot or a brand new path that follows your bot (whereas nonetheless leaving paint behind).
To maintain it fascinating, there are additionally power-ups that present up throughout the world, with 4 totally different sorts to keep away from overcomplicating it. There’s a pace enhance, dimension enhance, splatter (which explodes paint out round you), and Ball, which creates a paintball of your color to knock across the enviornment. The facility-ups have a fairly large affect within the matches, with some robots changing into large splattering powerhouses as they knock everybody out of the best way. Whereas it may be enjoyable being the powered-up robotic, to an extent the power-ups can actually unbalance a match early on. A number of the power-up placements actually favour sure components of the world, which might result in the close by robotic changing into a pressure to be reckoned with.
Now, in fact, it’s enjoyable to be the large robotic travelling at excessive pace as you knock round further paintballs across the enviornment and wipe the ground together with your opponent. It’s a lot much less enjoyable spending a great minute or extra hoping a power-up spawns close to you when you’re lagging behind the powered-up opponent. Throughout the matches, it by no means felt like all one particular person would handle to monopolise each time, and there have been sufficient occasions that it felt extra balanced throughout everybody getting some power-ups. There are six arenas, every with a unique format and obstacles/gimmick.
Plaza is extra simple, navigating round bushes. Manufacturing unit includes contending with transferring conveyor belts that preserve the power-ups transferring across the fringe of the world. Dock has two major areas, with transport containers as the one technique to get throughout the 2. Hexagon is a pleasant open house with no obstacles within the enviornment, however there are ropes alongside the sting like a wrestling ring to bounce you round. Seaport takes the motion throughout two boats, the place the soar/sprint is required to hop between the boats to make a large number. Workplace has extra contained areas with cubicles and home windows forcing the Splatterbots to bounce round small areas (till you smash the home windows).
Whereas there are solely six arenas, all of them do a great job distilling all of the various kinds of layouts to have with out complicating it. They’re all enjoyable sufficient to return to. It’s a disgrace there isn’t a contest mode to play by means of every enviornment or the choice to pick out a random enviornment to maintain momentum going if you wish to play just a few rounds.
It’s a native multiplayer recreation for as much as 4 gamers. If you happen to don’t have 4 folks round, the CPU can step in and assist elevate the stakes. There’s a Free For All mode or Groups, protecting you for both everybody for themselves or if you wish to workforce up. It’s all the time good to have CPU gamers as an choice for a recreation the place you may’t play on-line; right here they’re competent sufficient after they don’t get caught within the enviornment on the odd event.
There’s a color blind mode and the flexibility to alter the size of the matches or what power-ups you need on or off. As I don’t have color blindness, I’m not sure how efficient it’s, however you may inform which paint is yours; there are totally different form patterns in every path.
Splatterbot is a enjoyable, transient multiplayer recreation solely developed by a one-person workforce at Hey! Kookaburra. The sport works greatest briefly bursts with pals, and it by no means presents itself as something grander. Typically it’s good to have a strong occasion recreation that’s straightforward to select up and play.
Score: 3.5/5
