Quick Look: Awesomenauts

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After working on the popular Swords & Soldiers, Dutch developer Romino Games is back with a brand-new game, in the form of Awesomenauts. 

The title is a sort of spiritual successor to the previous historical strategy game, this time taking players into the future and tasking them with guiding heroes throughout new environments during the tough wars waged in the asteroid mining industry.

With the same stylized, cartoonish visuals and the promise of a bit more action instead of strategy, Awesomenauts looks quite interesting.

Does it deliver on its name or should you skip this new Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game entirely? Let’s have a quick look.

If you’ve played Swords & Soldiers, then Awesomenauts won’t feel that different, as Romino retains many of the trademark features from its last project.

First up are the stylized visuals that make you actually feel like you’re watching a cartoon and not playing a game. The graphics are quite smooth and the character design is very good, so you’ll soon fall in love with the array of heroes you can control.

While Swords & Soldiers tasked players with taking care of a base and slowly building up troops to assault the enemy, Awesomenauts puts you right into the action, thanks to its battle arena-type gameplay.

As such, you just guide your hero through a 2D level in order to destroy the drill of the enemy faction. Until you reach your goal, you need to defeat the defenses of your opponent as well as his own heroes. Thankfully, there are AI-controlled minions constantly spawning from your base, which should provide a distraction while you execute your attacks.

You can control an array of heroes, each with their own special powers and play styles, and it’s recommended that you learn their strengths and weaknesses because you’ll face off against many of them during battles.

The mechanics are decent but you do get the feel that the AI-controlled heroes are a bit too powerful and always know when to dodge your attacks. Thankfully, once they’re swarmed with your minions, they can be taken down quite easily.

Basically, Awesomenauts delivers a cartoonish, 2D battle arena experience and, while that may not sound that interesting for veterans of the genre, the result is pretty good.

For a look at Romino’s game in action, check out the video above.