Thanks to bubby darkstar and NoQuarter Software for the review code!

Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion is perhaps the best distillation of the ethos of internet humor that has ever existed, at least in the medium of video games. It combines random juxtapositions of Invader Zim style cartoons, the crassness of Adult Swim shows, and the glaringly rough edges of internet culture to make the funniest game I’ve maybe ever played. But at the end of the day, it is all ultimately just a joke. It’s a well told, multilayered joke, but the punchline still tastes like candy rather than a fulfilling meal.

It’s absurd to consider the sheer amount of art in this game. Every character, model, and even UI element in the game is seemingly hand drawn, and it gives the entire experience a playful look reminiscent of things like the Captain Underpants books or Ed, Edd, and Eddy. The opening splash screen proudly proclaims it was made without any AI tools, but that disclaimer isn’t needed to see that this project is the product of human imagination and work alone. And the fact that the game took me over 15 hours to complete, with more secrets left to find later, shows just how much content is packed into this otherwise modest little title. The lack of congruency in faces and the inconsistently proportioned character models look just a little fucked up in ways that always add more character rather than subtract from some standard of polish.

In fact, it feels weird to even look at this game with an expectation for it to be polished. Sure, I had a minor bug or two that resulted in me having to replay the first level, and the slight under saturation of the colors in game never fully felt intentional. But nearly the entire script is written without any capitalization at the start of sentences, and the canonical name of Earth is Earf. It is so overwhelmingly silly that it defies anyone who dares to take it seriously enough to critique it too harshly, but that silliness also makes it even more endearing to play. When I mention that this game captures the ethos of internet humor, this is mostly what I mean.

The style of humor here isn’t anything like a Fraiser or even a Friends, this is a delightfully cursed combination of what you’d get if you turned dril tweets into an Adult Swim show. We all know what makes a great Adult Swim show sing: bold art styles, an absurdist tone, and a comfort with crassness. Shooty Shooty has all of that in spades, but the humor of a dril tweet comes not only from it’s absurdity and randomness, but also from it’s prominent typos, as that makes each post seem even more human. That humanity grounds these scenarios in a way that reinforces the hilarity of those posts, and that same presence has the same effect in the writing of Shooty Shooty.

I should maybe mention what kind of story is told with that writing. Well, you play as Shooty, a part of a military wing designed specifically to kill robots in the event of an invasion. Shooty is incredibly one track minded about her desire to kill robots, and she’s kinda cocky about it, which proves to complicate an otherwise straight forward invasion story. But so many more complications happen to her than from her, as a steadily growing cast of supporting characters pop in and out of the story for some crazy twist, gut busting gags, and a few heartfelt moments too. The story is good, very good even, but it is much more effective as a vehicle for jokes than it is as a moving narrative epic, even if one or two of those moments did genuinely move me. In fact, those more moving moments served as a bit of a false red herring, as I expected the ending to pack even the slightest emotional punch, and I was disappointed to find that it ended on just another joke. The ending is funny because it just…ends, and it leaves (most) of our cast effectively in the state they’ve been in all game despite the world changing irreversibly. But despite the sudden ending, I had a one hell of a time before that sudden stop.

But hey, I’ve talked a lot about art, humor, and narrative, but what about the gameplay? Well, it is also pretty solid, but as I played, it was clear that combat and interactivity was subordinate to every other aspect of the game. It’s a first person shooter that could be a movement shooter is you squint; sprinting into enemies will do damage and you can leap and dash long distances, as well as wall bounce. Your arsenal is tied to each level, so sometimes you’ll be locked to a revolver, or an AK 47, or akimbo pistols. Sometimes you’ll be able to find a secret alternate weapon to switch to, as levels are fairly large in an Immersive Sim type way, but you’ll be gunning down hordes of robots and some well designed bosses with whatever weapons the narrative leaves at your disposal.

Gunplay is decent, as the (hand drawn!) hit markers, robot stagger animations upon shot, and melee impact effects make each scrap with these bots fun to experience. However, the hordes you fight in regular combat are often too large and too full of varied attack types for you to be able to properly avoid. But that’s where the boss fights get to shine, as those attack patterns are way better telegraphed and the spectacle of them just makes for more enjoyable combat encounters overall.

The biggest disappointment I had with the game is the fact that this gameplay takes a major backseat after the first few levels. I genuinely enjoyed the diversity of robots they throw at you, and the tools you get to use on them. So, when the middle 3rd of the game is almost entirely a visual novel/walking simulator, I was initially let down. But this is where the story begins to truly surprise and expand it’s possibilities, so being locked in with the narrative at this point does pay off handsomely in the end.

Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion is a flawed masterpiece. It’s humor, heart, and scrappiness masks a pretty basic shooter, but despite it’s failure to grasp every goal it reaches for, it succeeds as art because it absolutely grasps one of the hardest things to get a handle on: originality. I have never played a hand drawn first person shooter before. I had never had lesbian sex moments before attempting to assassinate a CEO in a game before. And I have never met a character so stubborn that their refusal to just die already canonically saved their own life. I love Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion not despite its’ warts, but largely because of them, too.