Ultratron Review

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Retro gaming is a big part of today’s gaming world, while Nintendo have a back catalogue like no other in this respect, there are some newer companies bringing remakes with new ideas. While this is a nice trend in gaming, there is the question, is there enough new things to be different enough to keep the interest going with the game and is the game good enough to keep you interested in the first place?

Robotron 2084 is the classic game that has been remade here, it was one of the first and certainly an early favourite in the twin stick shooter genre. You basically play as a human character shooting robots and saving other humans, it was fun but solid as a rock. First made by Midway in 1982, it’s a year older than me and I can remember a six year old playing it at my local Butlins in Ayr, wasting a lot of two bob coins that arcade that holiday! The setting was mind blowing, the game was hard but I still wanted to play, yes this is one way I developed my passion for gaming.

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Basically looking at Ultratron, it is a remake of said Robotron 2084, Puppy Games has added a lot to the game and has made a great attempt of modernising and making the game worth playing al over again. The gameplay is just about the same, but there are some changes, you still run and gun every robot in sight but there is some interesting stuff added on. You have an in between level upgrade shop where you can get better weapons, helper droids and other help full upgrades, all the robots you kill drop coins for you to collect to spend in this shop through the levels. You have guardians to be fought at the end of each lot of levels too, big robots, with big weapons, each with different challenges to be had.

Needless to say the aesthetics have had a great upgrade too, it looks like a sleek modern game, the colour effects, the explosion effects all add up to a nice picture. The sounds are atmospheric, you even get sound bytes of “Kill all humans!” Wow, yes, this is what I wanted when I first saw this game! I enjoyed every aspect of the presentation in this game, there is no change of background just a change of colour scheme for each world, but that isn’t a huge problem considering the game itself, it all does the job well anyway. The light show this game gives looks great on the screen and the gamepad for sure, needless to say I liked it overall.

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The gameplay itself is however very hard, unforgiving, just like it’s ancestor! Hard core gamers should enjoy this one greatly, the challenge never feels too hard, but at the same time you can die very quickly if you happen to keep getting hit at one time (investing in shields is wise in the shop for longer gameplay sessions!) It may put off gamers with no experience in twin stick shooters or hard games, that is worth a thought before you part with your hard earned cash, but I handled it, that probably means you can too, just stick with it! The save system is also to commended, you can just close a game and restart at the same level you where at, but if you die, back to the start you go!

The price point is quite high for an indie game, but I think for this it is actually worth while. This is one of the best pick up and play games currently on the Wii U, the Eshop is healthier for having it in my opinion, variety is the spice of life after all! I would give this one a solid buy for hard core shooting fans, everyone else, take a look and see what you think, I certainly did not regret getting this myself! This is more than a fitting to the classic game it is emulating and I congratulate the developers for that achievement alone.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Wii U code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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