Provided you can get behind some other new ideas that are so different as to arguably run contrary to the genre's typical principles, it compounds that reward as the player can delve deeper into that unusual and minuscule-scaled biological setting. Like Geometry Wars, Super Stardust HD and any number of other twin-stick shooters, MicroBot's control scheme - left stick to move your vessel, right stick to aim and fire - couldn't be simpler.
You're controlling a nanorobot instead of a spaceship, and invading aliens and zombies have been replaced by invading bacteria and other pathogenons, but the primary objective - shoot everything and stay alive - is as pure as it's ever been. But MicroBot's setting almost immediately allows it to set a different pace than its peers typically establish.
Steering the nanorobot through an advancing school of cells or against an opposing current of blood adds a palpable degree of resistance (and, when riding with the current, assistance) to basic movement, and the setting takes on its own life as a neutral third character in the battle between bot and disease.
The body can be both a lifesaver and a hazard depending on how you approach its moving parts, and it looks awfully good regardless of its utility. (A word of warning to the excessively squeamish: Clinical or not, MicroBot's depiction of video game blood may be a little too authentic for your stomach's liking.) The setting also provides occasion for MicroBot to dote on exploration more than a twin-stick shooter typically does.
Arguably, it's to a fault.
Rather than take place in a single screen or arena, MicroBot's levels are large, winding and rife with alternate passageways and other secrets.
Levels are dotted with hidden items and atoms that go towards upgrading the bot's capabilities, and while picking levels clean is totally optional, uncovering the trickier secrets is easily as satisfying an endeavour as any of the mandatory challenges. The debatable down side is that the exploration comes at the expense of intensity.
"MicroBot" provides plenty of stuff to shoot, but it also punctuates its frantic shootouts with slower moments designed around exploration.
Anyone expecting a continuous, Geometry Wars-style assault should adjust their expectations, because this isn't that kind of game.
Beyond a secondary challenge mode, the game doesn't even use a scoreboard. The upside to that arguable down side is that MicroBot embraces its adventure-game ambitions.
In addition to being roomy, the levels are more diverse than the setting might imply.
The boss fights that cap each area provide satisfying closure to each area.
Local co-op support lets two players complete the journey together. Finally, the upgrade tree is absolutely stellar.
Collecting atoms and unlocking abilities allows you to upgrade the nanorobot with a surprising abundance of parts, and the game's flexibility with regard to parts distribution - and the effects different distributions have on play - is striking.
Players who want a faster game can upgrade their way to one by loading their bot with navigation parts, while struggling players can fortify their bot with defensive parts to ease the difficulty.
MicroBot naturally allows players to upgrade their weaponry as well, and the nice array of firepower has something for everyone to like.
