S&S Indie Review: RotoSchutzen

Title: RotoSchutzen // Format: XBLIG // Release Date: 5/07/2012 // Publisher & Developer: Owen Deery // Price: 80 MS points // Violence: 1/3 // Sex: 0/3 // Mature Content: 0/3

It's not difficult to understand the challenges being faced by Indie game developers; after all they need to come up with an idea and execute it with limited resources and assistance. It's perhaps for that reason that Indie games deserve some slack when it comes to petty complaints about a title that might be warranted for a game from a bigger format.


Unfortunately for the action-adventure RotoSchutzen, the problems faced during the mission to find the big red button are too big to ignore.

To start with, the only thing that Owen Deery sourced out was the music, made by Estan Beedell, which is instantly forgettable and becomes irritating after a short while. This as an isolated issue is not disastrous, but the music could have really helped to pull RotoSchutzen back from the brink of mediocrity.

The second problem is far bigger however and will haunt you throughout your playthrough.

The 'copter you're given to fly and destroy turrets with in the quest to find the big button (none of the reasoning is explained) is extremely immobile. Whereas other side screen shooters have their vehicle fast and manoeuvrable, the craft in RotoSchutzen is not only painfully slow, but has the distinct disadvantage of being unable to shoot anywhere except down. This can be quite frustrating when the turrets have the high ground and it's difficult to circle above to line up a shot.

In this situation, a fast vehicle could rescue the conundrum, but the cumbersome 'copter just doesn't have the junk in her trunk to do the trick.

This is as far up as it shoots!

This all sounds bad, but it gets worse; when you get hit by the artillery firing from wherever, and you will get hit, your already ponderous chopper will shudder and slow down even further, leading to scenarios where you get quickly overwhelmed by only two enemies. And if they have the high ground, good luck displacing them.

It was during an early example of this that I realised the player has unlimited lives. Death means nothing except retreating to a checkpoint, and with it, so does the sense of challenge.

At least that's what I thought at first, because you will die over and over until you eventually whittle away enough at the edge of an iron curtain of turrets before you can progress. Don't think hit-an-run tactics but rather hit-an-respawn.

This tedious means of progression perhaps obscures the ridiculously short time it took to complete the entire thing- 25 minutes for sometime who exploded almost twice the amount of times. And despite the fact that there is an attempt to introduce a couple of different looking environments, the game is set all in one level.

There is also no incentive to destroy the turrets as there isn't a points system to test yourself against, further heightening the sense of futility the longer I played. The game doesn't push you to do anything more than complete the mission.

And with an inability to support even offline co-op, you will start to feel very frustrated once you near the end.

It's not all bad though, as the game does have a few saving graces. The graphics and artwork on the whole are sharp and snazzy and there is a smoothness of the transition between screen areas as well as a responsive sound system. One criticism of the graphics though is that the 2D art means that the background images are sometimes mistaken as in the foreground; I spent the first few minutes dodging mountains that were probably meant to be miles away. Once that paranoia was shaken off the graphics did work well.

Owen Deery probably needs to go back to the drawing board to showcase his obvious abilities after this, as RotoSchutzen represents a game that doesn't live up to the potential of its creator. Even at the cheapest possible price of 80 MS points, there are more enjoyable adventures to be had elsewhere.
                                                     S&S Rating:4/10