Future Shooter

In the dark and gloomy future when we're little more than mechanically enhanced cyborgs, it's nice to know that some basic human instincts will be retained.

The denizens of Future Shooter are motivated primarily by the desire to protect their territory, while simultaneously expanding their influence over rival gangs.

Both of these objectives are achieved via some good old-fashioned aggression. Once you've selected your character type from a choice of four, you set out into the bleak unknown, weapon in hand, and lay waste to your unfortunate adversaries.

Future Shooter may involve plenty of guns, but in terms of influence it owes a debt to side-scrolling brawlers such as Golden Axe and Final Fight. You can move in eight directions and engage in melee attacks, as well as shoot with your primary and secondary weapons.

Guns require a constant stock of ammo, which you can collect from fallen foes. You can also pick up health packs and cash - the latter of which is used in between levels to purchase upgraded weapons with increased stopping power.

Future Shooter starts off easy enough, with the initial wave of opponents having little more than a pocket knife between them, but you soon run into slightly tougher enemies.

These more formidable foes are armed with the same type of heavy weapons that you are, and they attack in groups. When you take into account the speed with which your guns eat through ammunition, it's not long before Future Shooter begins to demand a spot of tactical thinking on your part - you have to mix up the use of both your ranged weapons and melee attacks to succeed, basically.

The game itself is wonderfully presented. Character sprites are big and well animated, and the backgrounds show a nice level of variety despite the fact that they do conform to the traditional Blade Runner-style template of 'darkness with lots of blazing neon lights'.

While Future Shooter is fun for the first half an hour or so, the limited scope of the gameplay shows through clearly after that stage.

The levels hardly change, and the game soon becomes mired in repetition. Upgrading your armament offers some increased interest, but you're only afforded this upgrade opportunity once every few levels.

In the end, Future Shooter is well presented and plays nicely enough - especially with full Xperia Play support for both the D-pad and analog slider pad - but it's a shallow experience which offers no real surprises after the opening 30 minutes.