Mothergunship PC Review
Mothergunship is one of those games where you switch it on and within a few minutes you are having a blast. This title wants to throw you straight into the action with minimal obstructions, which thankfully is helped by the fact that everything built into Mothergunship works unbelievably well. With mechanics that are easy to understand and an atmosphere that is jammed with a great soundtrack and none stop action, it feels built for all the arcade FPS fans lusting for something a little different on the market.
On paper it sounds crazy, because the developers advertise Mothergunship as a title that brings challenging bullet-hell gameplay along with some rogue-like elements into an FPS with the idea of being able to craft your own weapons to fight against brutal overwhelming numbers. Surprisingly, it works, as its imaginative ideas and electrifying shooting turn something that could have easily been an absolute mess of a shooter into a smart, inventive FPS helped by Terrible Posture, the people who developed Tower of Guns, in co-development with Grip Digital.
It’s the player’s job as some silent dude in space armour to protect the Earth from an alien invasion by blowing up the Mothergunship. It’s not that easy, though, because to get to the Mothergunship requires disabling a lot of smaller ships to weaken the defence shield. The game even makes a joke about the constant search for intel for more intel for more intel to get to the end objective. This is one of the things that surprised me about Mothergunship. I jumped into this game expecting zero story and a pure focus on gameplay, but I actually enjoyed what was presented to me.
The overarching story is rather weak if looking for some clever invasion plot – it doesn’t care about that at all. What the writers have made is something that runs with the theme and turns it into parody by using the small team that communicate with each other through radio. The story is hardly ever serious, and half the time it will rather poke fun at cliches, tropes and random internet problems. There is a scene where the base gets infected with pop-up adverts and the crew are talking about it, excited to win a holiday or gain free items by touching them, while this is going on an amusing tip appears at the bottom warning players to never ever click on a pop-up in real life. The whole game is full of witty dialogue that mostly hits the mark, so I was always happy for my fellow space mates to speak in my ear for the next entertaining moment.
In all fairness, the dialogue is a nice thing to have to make someone snigger or smile, the real reason this game works is because of its gameplay. Mothergunship is fast, very fast, the player moves fast, bullets can move fast and there is rarely a moment where you are not surrounded by either bullets or enemies, and it never steps off the gas the further you progress. It reminds me of late 90s shooters like Unreal Tournament, using twitch response to stop the onslaught or dodge all incoming danger. Controls are responsive, and with the ability to build up jumping, to the point I could air jump over 30 times, there is a lot of agility on offer for the player to abuse, so it never becomes a point where a death is the game’s fault, well, that is unless you blame it for being a challenge.
Mothergunship has a straightforward structure to its campaign. From the safety of the home base players visit the terminal to pick the next mission. These come in two forms, main story missions and side missions – there is a third type, Endless, that unlocks partway through the story. The main story is self explanatory, but the side missions are used to build up experience and currency to be able to purchase additional weapon components from the smuggler who is hidden on the ship, while experience is used to upgrade the armoured suit’s various stats, such as health, speed, additional jumps, or faster energy regeneration.
Bonus items are awarded for finishing missions, often more cash, experience or a rare weapon component, but death isn’t the end, because all currency and experience are kept to then cash in for more weapons and upgrades. The only thing lost on death is the weapon gear that was in the inventory during the mission. This is where some of the rogue-like elements appear, because in theory, players can keep going until they gain enough cash and improved stats to power their way through it. Of course, skill is just as important, but it does get easier the more you keep replaying after each death, which happens often.
Missions are randomly built from building blocks and filled with different enemies. Every mission has a limited amount of slots (usually between 1-6) to take gear with you, but the mission itself begins with the player empty handed, two fists available to punch things. The starting room always has a weapon configuration machine to equip something to each hand, so there should never be a chance where the randomness leaves you gunless. This essence of randomness to its level design only goes so far, because these room designs aren’t in the thousands, so it’s normal to see familiar room layouts, but filled with different killer robots.
The alien armada metal is a theme that runs throughout the game, which is understandable, since all the levels are set on alien ships, but it would have been nice to add some flare to the design, maybe through some insane colour palettes or other themes that could have related to the power of the Mothergunship manipulating the player – seeing a horror ship would have been cool to experience. However, rooms do occasionally come with modifiers, such as the challenge rooms – keep moving for 60 seconds, do not get hit for 30 seconds, don’t kill anyone for 20 seconds – and room modifiers that might fill the section with fire pits, jumping pads or shield barriers that protect enemies. A boss will sometimes appear in the story mission, which offer something tactically different than usually enemies, but there aren’t many of them, and none of them appear in the side missions, which is a little disappointing. I can only assume thee developers wanted this to feel special and so kept them to the main missions.
All the gear unlocked through rewards from missions, purchased during a mission and bought back or bought from the stowaway seller are stored to be used within Mothergunship‘s wacky gun-building feature. These are split into three categories, Barrels, Connectors and Caps. Barrel is the gun itself, this could be anything like a shotgun, chaingun, laser, rocket launch, saw launcher – anything that fires something out of its gun barrel. Connectors are shaped pieces that enable more pieces to be attached to a hand, which can also be joined with more connectors, enabling multiple barrels and caps to be joint to them for some insane customisation. There was one build for me that featured a chaingun, a flamethrower, a blaster and a lighting rod on one hand that was tied to a cap that enabled increased rate of fires. Caps are modifiers that change stats on weapons. On top of that one example, these could also change push back, gravity, projectile speed, spread – there are so many options here and all the combinations make for some madness that fills the screen, both in terms of monstrous gun designs and the destruction of enemies blown up into a shower of metal.
There is a downside to creating a firearm from too many pieces, because it means it will drain energy at a faster rate. There are no ammo counters in Mothergunship, instead, each weapon uses energy, with each hand having its own energy supply. Without energy, there is no way to attack, since there is no melee attack in the game. Levelling up energy or using caps to reduce energy depletion are ways to combat this issue, but the first couple of hours with this game will make it hard to abuse the crafting system until energy becomes less of an issue. The wild constructions combined with random missions means that even if you manage to visit a familiar level, the weapons used mean combat is kept interesting until you become bored of crafting your monster weapon.
Repetition is one of the flaws with Mothergunship, since its progression is quite singular focus compared to single-player FPS games that offer full story campaigns. The level designs have to follow a theme and construction rule that I feel could have been much more. The developers must have wanted to get the core mechanics behind the game correct, which they have, so I could totally see a sequel take this idea and go even more wild with it. They have already mentioned that a cooperative update is coming very soon, along with leaderboards, more barrels, caps, connectors, and story missions. It’s priced reasonably, coming in at half the price of a normal retail title, while offering just as much fun as any shooter available.
Mothergunship could have easily been a failure, but somehow it comes together as a creative and inventive package. The gun building concept is implemented well and helps keep the gun-play thrilling and involving past some of the repetitive mission designs that eventually crop up. Still,. Mothergunship is hectic, fast and feels very 90s, and if that is something that tickles your fancy, then there is no wrong in picking up Mothergunship and having a blast with its bullet-hell, roguelike, insane gun crafting blend of action until you become sick of it, at that point, hours will have passed and many robots will have gave their life for your frantic enjoyment.
