This week’s special Flash Friday focus is a new shooter with an old-school feel to it. If you remember our review of the classic Crimsonland, be prepared to hear a lot of the same things about Robokill.

Robokill
Developer: Rock Solid Arcade

This developer’s been known for 2D flying games and planet crunching puzzles, so we’re pleasantly surprised to see that Rock Solid Games is trying its hand at an old-fashioned top-down shoot-em-up. In some ways it’s more stylish than its cousin Crimsonland, since instead of leaving a mess of blood, you’re wandering through space stations, blasting hundreds of robots into little metal bits with an increasingly powerful array of guns and lasers. And all this, plus it’s a flash game, too.

Robokill gives you bite-sized chunks of action by dividing up all the levels into different rooms, each one containing enemy robots with serious attitude problems. You simply have to fight your way through them, using arrow keys to move around while you point and click with your mouse to shoot them. The rooms get more complicated as the game goes on, with such features as beam traps, pitfalls, ambushing robots that suddenly appear out of nowhere, turrets and little portals that pop more and more robots out. Luckily, you get stronger with experience, in a Diablo-style action-RPG sort of way, and you’ll be able to collect more and more powerful guns, grenade launchers, lasers and other useful items to arm yourself with. You also earn money in the game which you can spend at a store to buy even more weapons.

The graphics are endearingly pretty with nice lighting effects, as well as scorch and crater effects left behind after a battle, and tiny pieces of metal bouncing around in the wake of each exploded robot. The game isn’t too hard since you just respawn with a penalty to your cash total and a couple of rooms’ progress set back whenever you die, but some rooms full of opponents can be tricky, especially from the fourth level onwards. And that’s just where the demo ends, after four out of ten levels, with the more powerful weapons and opponents still waiting to be discovered. So if you just want a mindless blast through an army of sci-fi robots, click on the link and check this game out. [Play]