AKIMBOT a Good Time That Is a Few Bolts Short of Greatness

Prison planet!

Exe is a mercenary bot who is down on his luck and now stuck on a prison transport, on his way to finally pay his dues for the crimes he committed against the "algorithm" with you there is a yappy, annoying bot by the name of shipset who seems to insist to escape. Not sure we want to get near that guy.. then everything goes horribly wrong.

Akimbot is a  3D, action-adventure platformer or as I like to call it, platform shooter created by Evil Raptor, a small studio in France who previously created Pumpkin Jack, another action platformer that harkened back to games such as MediEvil. Now they are taking on the Action duo games of the early 2000's such as Rachet and Clank, Jak and Daxter etc. We were able to try out a small portion of the game at PAX West, and the publisher was so kind to send us a review copy to try out the rest of the game after we came home.

In this game you play as Exe (pronounced EX--EE) an outlaw, merc-bot and sidekick Shipset, who feels like an alternate universe's Claptrap with similar voice effect and comedic relief attitude.  All that is missing is some wubwub's. This unlikely duo forced together by fate and an underlying codependency by Shipset. Together you explore, and shoot your way through armies of various enemies, fly space missions and end up accidentally in the universe saving business. 

  

Running and gunning.

In the game you control Exe for most of the time, with the occasional side mission exception (more on that later) 

The main gameplay is what you would expect from a platform shooter with a mostly linear setup within large open levels. You have a few ways to take out the vast armies that are hell bend on stopping you and your chatty partner. You come equipped with a blade that provides a powerful melee swing, A jump stomp and various weapons. Your main weapons are a rifle, a Bolt Action Sniper, a Minigun, each assigned to a d-pad button and lastly a special weapon of your choice that will be equipped to the triangle button as a short cut. 

All the main weapons have a cool down and if you overload them, they will need a cooldown period, preventing you from spamming any weapon and often have to switch or pause shooting to allow them to cool.  The limited weapon set felt a little uninspired, but the gun play is great and feels tight, which is needed as you will face some tough battles, built the cooldown mechanic has you playing tactical with how you face your enemies. These encounters are brutal by the way, as hordes of enemies with dead on aim will do their very best to take your head off at any time. It is not recommended to get in to close, but instead tactically take out the hordes bolt by bolt and then progress forward.

As far as the special weapon goes there is a choice of only four. The problem is you can only equip one of these special weapons at a time and there is no ammo pickup for it. You need to charge it by killing enemies with the other weapons and soaking up their charges. This causes you to think twice before you use it because you might just need it later on. there are upgrades to unlock as well for these weapons at weapon shops you run into through the levels. The main issue for me is the game allows only one special equipped at a time and you can only switch, or upgrade at the weapons hop which as too far in between and the cost of upgrades is too high.

I think a weapon wheel would have solved this issue and allowed more fun changing out the special weapons based on need or just to experiment, throughout the game.

Parkour and minigames!

The other part of the game is of course the movement through the levels, and this has been equally well executed. You will run and jump on platforms, moving rocks, grapple along great distances and bounce of light walls in order to get hard to reach places. Exe comes with a jump; double jump and a dash allowing for some great exploring and even correct any mistakes you make on the way. 

Throughout the game you are asked to hack some control panels which will provide you one of a few minigames, a game of snake, find the ball, QuickTime button press etc. They are random and just fine not too challenging. After a while it does get a little old though.  There are also some small puzzles where you check the environment for clues to open doors. None of these should be too difficult for anyone and if you miss it, you will get in game dialogue helping steer you to the solution. 

The movement and especially dashing is a key to the battles you encounter during the game as running in headfirst into battle is a sure way to get demolished. Instead use movement and cover where available to tactically get out of dodge and cleanup any enemies on the field.  Further parkouring and finding secrets throughout the game or even just progressing beyond the environmental hazards is a great experience

However, there are moments where Evil Raptor wanted to switch up the gameplay and introduced a series of different gameplay mini levels. For me more often those mini levels missed the mark rather than be genuinely fun. Some worked fine to some degree such as the racing sections or in the case of the space missions the presentation is amazing and often feels like a true space game. 

Many others just did not do it for me and took me out of the game, some require rapid reaction moving left and right, but the camera is all wrong, there is a flappy bird clone, and a weird 8-bit fight game where all you can do is move left, right and punch and more. Do not get me started on the insane dream/hallucination chapter either as I almost quit the game at this point, it was clearly not my cup of tea and really took me out of the game. It really felt that instead of culling proposed game ideas during game development, everything was approved and shoehorned in to see what sticks. Unfortunately, these often came across as the weakest points of the game, and quickly overstayed their welcome. great effort, but they missed the landing on this part. It is therefore surprising that for the grand finale of the game they doubled down and it consists near entirely out of these alternative minigames and playstyles instead of using the platform shooting mechanics to present a challenging end boss.

Worldbuilders and storytellers

Despite coming from a small (10 man?) dev team, they have nailed the presentation of this game. Sure, the story is nothing groundbreaking but it fits so well in this type of game, there are zany characters, plot twists you see coming a mile away, and dialog throughout the game. The voice acting is serviceable overall, Voice acting ranges from good to serviceable, some voice actors do multiple voices such as Reece Bridger playing both heroes of the title game, which is impressive. Funny enough his Shipset, despite being an annoying character has way more heart and feeling in it then his Exe which just feels a little phones in, and do not get me started on his dismissive "Tsc"... sound at the start of a sentence. (you will see) 

As for the dialog and puns overall, they are ok, but I could not shake the feeling that they written by a non-native English speaker or directly translated. Whatever the case might be, often times the jokes fall a little flat. 

The same can be said for the graphics in the game which range from good to at times impressive. In the area of character design there are some fun choices made, and they have a very early 2000's feel to them, but with some modern lighting and effects added thanks to the Unreal engine the game is built on. Artistically the designs are pretty fun and diverse, however the choice of robots as the main habitants of this universe comes with designs that do not always allow for the greatest facial expressions. There are Master chief looking dudes, Dino-bots, flying creators and a bunch of cool spaceships and other vehicles. 

Due to the barrage of violence that comes your way during your adventures, the game does not allow many moments for you to get close to the enemy types, reducing you to shooting tiny far away pixels surrounded by blue boxes. With the effort put in the various enemy designs, I would have loved to see them more up close.

There is a reasonable variation in locations, jungle, lava, ice and at times the art direction really shines through, and I could really apricate what the dev team was going for.

All the audio, from dialog, to weapons, sfx, music etc. is well put together and complements the game well. With varied soundtrack themes throughout the game and impactful explosions etc. the team at Evil Raptor was able to bring the game to life in this aspect as well. 

Final Thoughts

Despite some of the lesser parts of the game, that irked me on occasion on my playthrough, I felt that overall, this game delivers a genuine experience reminiscent of the 2000's-character driven action platform adventures that especially popular on PlayStation. The good thing is that you can enjoy this on other platforms such as PC and XBOX as well and it is able to scratch that itch for those players looking for more games like it in the genre. Akimbot comes dangerously close to its inspirations, but in doing so its flaws get painfully highlighted at times.  These flaws are not a deal break, especially at its price point of only $19.99, which is great value. However, they hold the game to being good instead of being great. If you are looking for a full polished experience that can stand toe to toe with those other games, you should temper your expectations but if you are a fan of these games, or always wanted to play them and never could, this is your opportunity, and you are in for a good time. 

Parental guidance: This game is rated 10+ by the ESRB for Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, which means it is pretty much playable by the whole family. We 100% agree with that rating. I would add that even younger ones could be ok with the content depending on your personal beliefs and care. After all, it is all just robots and not blood or gore spilled. As always be aware what your kids play, and even more fun, play with them.

Title: Akimbot

Developers: Evil Raptor

Publisher: PLAION

Platforms:  PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, PC (steam) 

ESRB: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language

MSRP: $19.99
Release Date: August 29, 2024 

About the writer: DadGeek (Rob) is the co-founder of GeeksVsGeeks. He is a product of the eighties and never let go of his geek interest and hobbies no matter how often someone told him to stop. His love for gaming and all things geeks has been part of his parenting style and permeates throughout the whole family. A family of Geeks vs Geeks