Robots, Robots and More Robots
HIGH A great sense of scale.
LOW Not a ton of enemy and combat variety.
WTF The vehicles were abysmal to drive.
When working in a space with as many smash hits as the 3D platformer genre has, a studio has many sources of inspiration to draw from. They can take the Ratchet and Clank approach and focus on weapons and power-ups, they can focus on movement and verticality like the 3D Mario titles, or take it in any number of wacky directions one can imagine.
Akimbot lies somewhere in the middle of all of those choices, yet refuses to fully execute on any of them. After rolling credits, I was disappointed — with a bit more polish and inspiration, it could have been so much more.
The player begins in a mobile jail cell flying over a beachy planet. The player is in control of Exe, a robot mercenary taken captive by the all-powerful Algorithm — the world robot government that rules Akimbot’s universe. Exe is shacked up with Shipset, a wisecracking (albeit annoyingly-voiced) floating drone that has a grand plan to break them out of jail and begin a life on the run. The only problem? Both Exe and Shipset have unique skills of special use to the Algorithm.
As both very good at avoiding capture, taking hits and being accurate with their shots,the Algorithm forcibly tasks Exe and Shipset with trying to take down an aptly-named evil robot (Evilware) who is planning to summon a robot army to take over the universe and destroy the Algorithm. The Algorithm then compels them forward on on a wild goose chase through the past, present, and a few dream sequences to save the universe.
Akimbot is at its best when showing large-scale environments on the planets the pair are journeying across, as maps span what seem like miles between combat encounters. There are sandy beaches, poison swamps, and frigid tundras speckled with robotic life and remnants of civilizations, all captured in a blocky art style — but so much of it is just window dressing. There were many times I walked, dashed, and shot my way through these environments and felt that there was so much more that could have been done to make them feel richer. A little piece of lore or a few friendly NPCs would go a long way to fill these worlds with life.
Akimbot’s gunplay-focused combat mirrors the shallow feeling of the environments. Ultimately armed with an assault rifle, sniper rifle, minigun and rocket launcher, Exe needs to slay hordes of enemies from Evilware’s army as they shoot at him from afar. The loop is fairly engaging, but having gunplay be the main focus also necessitates a decent cover system and enough obstacles to hide behind and shoot between, which are mostly absent in Akimbot. Many times I’d peek out from behind a sliver of a pillar and be bombarded with enemy fire, only see nowhere else to hide. Exe’s health bar not being upgradable exacerbates the issue.
Combat variety is also a persistent problem in Akimbot. There are only four weapons during the campaign, but most encounters don’t require more than one. The sniper rifle outclasses every other weapon in the arsenal, taking out most enemies in two or three shots like clockwork. There were a few instances where I had to switch it up and disable shields with the rocket launcher or kil hordes of weak enemies with the minigun, but for the majority of the time, the sniper was all that was required. Akimbot could add a lot of much-needed variety by leaning into situational encounters that require players to try different tactics. Including some sort of more-realized upgrade system would have helped it feel fresher, as well.
However, one aspect that I did appreciate was the sense of scale often found in Akimbot. There are sections where Exe and Shipset fly to new planets, and in these segments it’s possible to see the end goal while still at the very beginning of the level, showing the entire task at once. Some of the boss fights employ a similar scale. When taking on flying spaceships and giant mechanical lizards, Exe and Shipset often seem as large as microbes in huge, hostile environments, and traversing incredibly long distances just to get a couple of quick hits on a boss made killing them feel rewarding.
Despite the combat overshadowing the rest of Akimbot, it is a 3D platformer with other dimensions. The platforming mechanics are solid, but often seem like filler among the gunplay encounters. Wall-running, grappling, and disappearing platforms are all a bit janky and feel unfinished in the grand scope of each level. There are also puzzles for Exe to “hack”, where he plays an abbreviated version of Snake or has to press a series of buttons in a certain order, all with a time limit. However, they don’t change in difficulty throughout, so they end up feeling more like chores to complete than anything else.
Atop all of these mechanics is a fairly interesting story of who deserves to wield power, and how much that power corrupts these robot leaders. EvilWare and the Algorithm are both evil but also not evil, and that they’re mainly just mad at each other. Unfortunately, despite how interesting the plot might be, the mechanics just don’t provide enough support to keep the entire experience feeling well-rounded.
Akimbot presents a lot of ideas that don’t significantly learn from or build on the milestones established by the 3D platformers that have come before it — and there are a lot of them to learn from. In the end, it’s a middling, uninspired entry into a genre crowded with bangers, and finds itself in need of both more polished mechanics and a livelier world. My hope is that Evil Raptor will improve on this first effort and expand on Exe’s story in a more realized way.
Rating: 5 out of 10
— Jack Dunn
Disclosures: The game was developed by Evil Raptor and is published by PLAION. It is currently available on PC, XBX/S, and PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 9 hours was devoted to the game, and it was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of E for Fantasy Violence and Mild Language. All of the fighting in the game is between robots, though the game’s main weapons are guns. The mild language uses words like “bot” and “scrap” as placeholders for more choice words.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles in the game, and no audio cues are required for gameplay. The subtitles cannot be resized. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable controls: Controls are fully remappable.
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