[REVIEW] Droid Assault

James Davenport
(PC [REVIEWED], Mac)

Droid Assault is a practice in excessive empowerment and its subsequent and painful withdrawal. Which makes it the best doggy daycare simulation on the market. No, really. When reading, replace every instance of the word “droid” with “dog” and “lasers” and “death” with “scents” and “he/she got into the garbage, again” respectively.

In Droid Assault, the player takes control of a hacker bot and moves around the environment in a mode akin to other twin-stick shooters. The muted neon environments are populated with other droids minding their own business. That is until you ‘transfer’ to another droid, assuming control and prompting every other droid to hunt you down. Over the course of the game, and even individual levels, the player collects transfer credits, which allow the player to then assume control of more droids. In a short time, a small army can be amassed. In an even shorter time, said army can be obliterated.

As expected of a stylized roguelike in fast forward, I developed connections with specific droids after nurturing their development over the course of several levels only to have them torn to shreds the moment I left their control. Initially, such a realization might be hard to swallow, but once the peak and valley (very high peaks and the lowest of the valleys) gameplay loop makes itself known–which won’t take long–you might take less time getting to know your droids. Love hurts, after all.

Some levels appear to be built purely with malicious intent to decimate any semblance of a well-crafted team. You’ll start from square one many times, scrapping together a ragtag team of really, really stupid robots. Just the stupidest. As soon as a droid leaves your direct control, it sniffs around corners nigh aimlessly, or, as rogue droids are wont to do, runs into the midst of enemy fire like it has but a fleeting moment to make all the friends in the world. Strategy!

The player’s task is to make sure the aforementioned hells break loose to the smallest extent. Do I brave the fire of multiple turrets or do I sacrifice the necessary transfer credits to turn them on my enemies? If I do, then when/if my team is wiped out, I won’t be able to convert any worthwhile bots. If I don’t, I’ll have enough transfer credits to capture a powerful droid or several smaller ones, but my team, including myself, my take a massive beating from the turrets.

Problem is, hells will break loose. All over the place. There isn’t much to pre-planning in Droid Assault, the necessary moves for survival are nearly impossible to ascertain, especially under an infinite barrage of laser fire from every direction. Do I pile all my upgrades into one droid or spread them evenly throughout the tea–annnnd I’m dead.

Even though Droid Assault is a constant stream of difficult decisions with little to no time for adequate consideration of consequence, it only remains difficult until patience and perseverance trigger the noggin into initiating its mysterious self improvement processes. Like many fast-paced twitch games, Droid Assault will become easier and you won’t know why. It will be satisfying and tragic, because ultimately, you’re only racing against an inevitable death, just trying to put some big numbers on a leaderboard in unknown nethers of the internet. And as long as you’re okay with xXXxJACKRABBIT65xXXx forever claiming that number one spot, then you ought to be okay with giving Droid Assault a shot. Or two. Or three-hundred.

The deciding factor in whether or not you ought to play this game can be boiled down to a single question: Are you a cat person, or a droid person?