Mothergunship

 Xbox One
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 16
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 16
  3. Negative: 0 out of 16
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  1. Xbox Tavern
    Jul 19, 2018
    85
    The epitome of FPS bullet-hell. Despite minor issues with the game’s framerate, this is a shining example of how several gameplay elements can be seamlessly slapped together to produce a near outstanding outcome. The game’s action-packed structure rarely buckles, which when grouped with its fantastic design and uncertainty, makes for one of the best shooters in recent memory.
  2. DualShockers
    Jul 18, 2018
    85
    Mothergunship is worth seeing through once but I’m sure you’ll want to tackle the campaign at least one more time.
  3. Digital Chumps
    Jul 30, 2018
    83
    Mothergunship is a solid title that hangs its hat on weapon customization, while sacrificing some gameplay. It’s definitely worth a go, even if only to show the insane weapon designs one can concoct.
  5. COGconnected
    Jul 18, 2018
    82
    Rarely do I play a game where dying makes me excited to keep playing and I easily lost track of the time from constantly wanting to improve and build something bigger, better, and badder.
  6. XBLA Fans
    Dec 20, 2018
    80
    Mothergunship is a ultimately a humorous tale of taking back earth from the aliens that had no business winning in the first place. Going through this game will have its frustrations but the funny writing and the solid gameplay at work here will make those melt away. From top to bottom, Mothergunship is a good time, and good for a solid go on your hard drive. So what are you waiting on soldier? Don’t you have some aliens to kill?
  7. Windows Central
    Jul 21, 2018
    80
    Between the intuitive crafting and strong gameplay design, Mothergunship's successes heavily outweigh its problems. It's definitely worth checking out.
  8. The Daily Dot
    Jul 18, 2018
    80
    For fans of frantic, intense shooters with a layer of customization and random elements, it would be hard not to recommend Mothergunship.
  9. TheXboxHub
    Jul 16, 2018
    80
    Mothergunship is a fun experience. Seeing a gun you’ve designed and crafted rip apart the robotic alien hordes is always fun, and the odd niggles aside, it is more than a decent game to play.
  10. GameSpot
    Jul 16, 2018
    80
    With the game's clever gun crafting system added into the mix, familiar tropes and techniques from classic shooting galleries feel super-charged in the game's randomized bullet-hell dungeons.
  11. XboxAddict
    Aug 24, 2018
    75
    MOTHERGUNSHIP is a crazy frantic bullet hell FPS, a first of its kind experience for me. Crafting weapons and seeing how they perform is fun, even if it’s trial and error. I wish that there was more upgrades in relation to leveling up, but even so, I enjoyed my time with it. Boss fights are what kept me going from ship to ship and the humorous writing along the way helped balance the experience. It may be a little shallow aside from its shooting mechanics, but sometimes you just need to turn your brain off and shoot an onslaught of robots to relax.
  12. IGN Spain
    Jul 19, 2018
    72
    Mothergunship has some interesting ideas, and a couple of awful gameplay choices that makes this game a little less fun that it should have been.
  13. SomosXbox
    Jul 17, 2018
    71
    Mothergunship is defined as a bullet-hell FPS, that gives frenetic gunplay where you can craft your own guns. You’ll fight against robotic aliens armada that conquered Earth, in a game that gives a lot of fun, direct classic action and an interesting crafting option to destroy hordes and gigantic bosses. It’ll receive updates in the near future to include coop options and more content, but for now it brings plenty of action.
  14. Official Xbox Magazine UK
    Sep 12, 2018
    70
    A fun, frenetic first-person shooter that suffers from a few frustrating flaws. [October 2018, p.86]
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  15. DarkStation
    Jul 17, 2018
    70
    Mothergunship is a cool FPS rogue-like shooter with a cool mechanic that’s hurt by technical hiccups. There's enough to like, though; gun crafting is fun and creative, the writing has a good sense of humor, and some of the boss fights are both pretty neat and intense. Building guns will soon be better with friends when a free update launches in August that will let you play with someone else in co-op mode.
  16. Trusted Reviews
    Jul 16, 2018
    70
    Mothergunship is one of the more creative first-person shooters to come along in a while, mixing the genre effortlessly with a shoot ‘em up and having a ball with it.
  17. ZTGD
    Jul 26, 2018
    65
    Mothergunship is for those who don’t mind punishing themselves and who like to break through walls to make progress. Challenging and with a unique gun crafting mechanic, the game manages to break the mold slightly. But with some performance issues and the uninspired settings I feel that the game may be better served with a price drop.

Awards & Rankings

78
#78 Best Xbox One Game of 2018
37
#37 Most Shared Xbox One Game of 2018

User Reviews

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User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 10
  3. Negative: 1 out of 10
  1. Xbox_Alive
    Jul 19, 2018
    8
    A game that has the term “bullet hell” thrown into the mix always has my attention because sometimes all I want to do is go on a destructiveA game that has the term “bullet hell” thrown into the mix always has my attention because sometimes all I want to do is go on a destructive frenzy. Mothergunship allows you to do that and then some, but much to my surprise this isn’t the only thing it allows you to do and instead it offers up a number of different and intricate things for you to do along the way. In fact in terms of content the game has a decent amount for you to be getting on with and when the multiplayer option gets implemented I can see this being a game that’s very difficult to put down. Replaybility isn’t a problem even now thanks to its procedural design so imagine the replaybility when the multiplayer aspect comes to the game. The gameplay then features a number of different mechanics for you to get to grips with and I’m pleased to say that each different mechanic is pretty much spot on. You’ll also notice right from the get go how much variety the gameplay has and that’s especially the case when it comes to the missions in the game. Each mission is fresh and interesting throughout and the enemies you face on these missions all have a creative side to them so completing a mission always feels satisfying. Starting a new mission however will get on your nerves a little bit and that’s mainly down to the loading times. The loading times literally feel like they go on forever and to say I got slightly annoyed with waiting around would be a little bit of an understatement. Thankfully though these are the only frustrating moments I experienced during my time with the game and I’m pleased to say that everything is perfect on the technichal side of things. I’m also pleased to say that the gameplay has got the perfect balance of being fair and challenging at the same time and if you’re worried about jumping in the game straight away then there’s a more than adequate tutorial to help you along the way. The story will also ease you into proceedings as well and whilst it failed to keep me invested throughout it still has a few decent parts placed into it. The presentation side of the game was actually one of my favourite things about the game and I felt that was mainly down to the atmosphere and immersiveness both the visuals and sound design created. At the end of the day as far as shooters go Mothergunship is a very decent shooter to say the least. All of the most important aspects are spot on and because of this any shortcomings the game has are quickly forgotten and in the end Mothergunship gets a big thumbs up from me.… Full Review »
  2. Marramiau
    Nov 22, 2020
    6
    Se me hace demasiado monótono y repetitivo por lo que cuando llevas unas cuantas horas cansa sobre todo si tienes que repetir nivel.

    No me    Se me hace demasiado monótono y repetitivo por lo que cuando llevas unas cuantas horas cansa sobre todo si tienes que repetir nivel.

    No me lo he terminado :(    … Full Review »
  3. GBG_Jason
    Jul 19, 2018
    8
    The game offers a basic cardboard cutout of a story that often feels like a caricature of the modern gaming scene. You’ll be tasked withThe game offers a basic cardboard cutout of a story that often feels like a caricature of the modern gaming scene. You’ll be tasked with taking down the impending alien threat, one ship at a time, working your way to the Mothergunship. Each ship makes up a level, broken down into small rogue-lite sized rooms of death that culminate in a boss battle. Between the levels, there will be some not so witty banter that will provide insights into new mechanics or the general story. These are all long winded, reminiscent of the codec conversations from Metal Gear Solid, and feature half of the effort on the part of the voice actors; it is so bad I could not wait for the Y prompt to come up for me to be done with the mind-numbingly dull banter.

    Luckily, the gameplay makes up for the lackluster story. You’ll work your way through the levels much like any other game, clearing the enemy forces and collecting gold, which can be used between most rooms to purchase upgrades that can be applied to your guns, as each hand can be outfitted separately. Want to make a rocket launcher that also has some buck shot barrels? How about a pistol that shoots flaming bullets faster than The Flash on meth? Cool, the game has you covered, giving you the option to make just about anything providing the barrels face forward and they physically fit together. Your only other limitation is the amount of power the weapon takes, which will impact the recharge rates, as all weapons use this in place of ammo.

    Crafting your tools of destruction is super easy, with a clear depiction of your creation allowing a full 360 degrees and easy points of contact being visible, with three types of components available for use. You’ll have your connectors, which allow you to stack additional rows or pieces; barrels, complete with their own firing types; mods, which allow you to add ricochet, explosives, and other options.

    The battle segments run extremely well, playing like an old school FPS game at ultra-speed with a triple jump option that allows for easy traversal. While it’s not game breaking nor does it really affect the player, the loading segments between missions present the gut wrenching dialogue run, stutter, and skip as if it was reading a disc that was force fed into a wood chipper, which breaks immersion each and every time there is a transition. Much like Doom and the other old school shooters that inspired it, constant movement is needed to survive, or certain death will come quickly. Sadly, dying in MOTHERGUNSHIP is extremely brutal for multiple reasons: you’ll not only lose any and all progress on the current level (this is also forfeit if you exit the game mid-level), but you will also lose any gun parts that were brought with you or earned on the run. This puts a nice risk vs reward mechanic in place – do you take your biggest and best items and go in blind, or do you express caution and take some mediocre components while you risk getting your face pounded in by one of the bosses, only to lose some of your precious time?

    With the exception of the boss encounters, the level and enemy designs are uninspired and offer token enemy types that can be found in any FPS game. The boss encounters make up for this, pitting the player against gigantic mechanized creatures with obvious weak points. Often times you have to evade the enemy attacks and wait for just the right time to launch a counter offensive turning the game into a bit of chess. The AI is passable, although I found the majority of the standard enemies to be nothing more than cannon fodder, with most of my deaths coming from hazards or simply not managing my health like I should. The difficulty spikes early, with rooms offering little to no cover, a single group of enemies, and rows upon rows of invincible turrets. The game offers cartoonish characters with little to no gore that would be perfect for the little gamer in your life, but the difficulty would likely result in a tantrum from younger players.

    You’d think with the option to create your own guns, PvP would have been one of the first modes added to this, but that’s not the case. I’m not normally one to wish that developers would tack on a multiplayer mode for no apparent reason, but I think this would’ve brought something to the table if it was an incorporated option. A saving grace is that co-op has been confirmed and will be added in a future update, which will also include leaderboards, daily challenges, and additional content in the form of new rooms and parts. While it won’t change the FPS game much and has room for some much needed polish, MOTHERGUNSHIP offers hours of fun with its frantic pace that rivals many of the games that inspired it. If you liked Tower of Guns, there’s a lot to love here.    … Full Review »
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