We’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time this week with the first three main story missions of the upcoming bullet-hell first-person shooter, Mothergunship. You may have seen our previous coverage as well. From the creators of Tower of Guns, this irreverent, addictive, RPG shooter hybrid is one you definitely want to keep an eye on as it’s set to launch later this summer.
Mothergunship may be one of the most fun but painfully difficulty shooters I’ve played. Expect to die. Expect to retry. It’s like when Tom Cruise is learning how to fight the aliens in Edge of Tomorrow. Only in Mothergunship, things aren’t taken so seriously. You’re one of the presumably many soldiers recruited by Earth’s military to don some bitching armor, go into space, and try to take down an invading force of gun-wielding alien robots. To get to the Mothergunship, you’re going to have to gather intel, take out bosses, and work your way through hordes of other alien ships. It’s as cheeky and awesome as it sounds.
The cast of narrating characters, sort of your team and leader through this mission, are about as cleverly written and beautifully acted as you can expect, even though they only appear in pop-up windows while you’re on a mission or at your home base. The home base is where you can spend XP to boost your mech suit’s armor, shields, and speed. It’s also where you can pick from available missions on the Atlas. In this “early campaign” build we played, it was relegated to mainly the story missions and some side missions which are used to get extra currency, XP, and test your mettle with gun parts being chosen for you. In the main missions, you can choose what gun parts you bring to the fight.
Of course, you’re never just stuck with what you bring. During each randomly generated mission or level, you’re going to pick up the currency and find little areas to shop and buy new gun parts at. The fun then is in figuring out how to fit as many of them together in each hand to make the biggest most powerful weapon possible. You start off with just one, and the other hand is used to punch the crap out of things with your mech suit. But eventually, you’ll need/want two guns. Adding special mods to them to make them bounce, increase velocity, and even send out magical hearts – it’s all in the name of some of the craziest first-person shooting you’ve ever seen.
Yeah, you’re going to die. You’re also going to laugh. You’re going to get creative. You’re going to have a crapton of fun. That’s what Mothergunship is all about. Look for our final review whenever the lazy devs finally release the damn thing. (Kidding, guys. Don’t be grumps.)
