Drunken Robot Pornography is annoyingly well-constructed for a game that caused me to slam my mouse so hard that I nearly split the atom. It's a high-concept shooter that takes the bullet hell genre and warps it into the third-dimension, dropping us into an FPS constructed from the bones of those side-view blasters. But by removing the third-person overview that's so necessary to give you a fighting chance against the genre's overwhelming odds – and to keep you sane – it loses a lot in translation.

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The rampage sends you through a futuristic Boston to battle in arenas that resemble a shiny, modern Quake 3. The plot, which revolves around two feuding sentient robot bartenders, is the sort of nonsense that developer Dejobaan's does well. There are a few entertaining chats with your robot suit, and some unhinged email exchanges that frame the story, but it doesn't mean much as you skim through the floating walkways and bounce on the jump-pads. Even if it has a great little theme song, it's mostly just scaffolding.

You rarely see the one that gets you.

Neat to look at, not so much to fight.

Every level is built around the notion that you are always about one second from death, and if you stop moving you'll die. There are a few variations on the theme, but most of the challenges are set up as an arena battle where you're sliding over platforms, jet-packing across chasms, and dodging around an ever-growing gathering of brainless and completely relentless enemies. They appear on the edges, squeezing in and exploding, or firing from the sides. There are slow-moving electro-burger bombs that follow you in a deadly cluster, there's a snake-like monster where every section of its whipping and swirling body is explosive, and there's a glowing bird who adds to the chaos by spitting bolts of plasma. The worst are laser spires that lance down through the level and slide through potential cover as if they weren't there. Their job is to attempt to wear you down and distract you as you attempt to do the same to the Titan, the central and huge boss (or bosses) that eventually spawns in the level, and they do that job a bit too well.Things get bogged down. Bullet hell games are about pattern recognition, but instead of being able to take in the entire play area, in Drunken Robot Pornography you're only ever facing a 90-degree wedge of it: there's no context if you're down on the ground and everything is exploding around you. I never died from anything I could see and track, but I died constantly at the hands of things that would strike me from behind, or from above or below, or that had appeared when my back was turned. Being hurt and then killed by unseen enemies is common, sickening, and utterly soul-destroying when you can only progress by winning each level. There's a very real possibility that a combination of enemies will just wear you down and have you replaying a level over and over and over, which happened to me twice and left me so miserable that I honestly had to be consoled.The Titans are a brave experiment in putting boss battles front and centre. They're often glorious things to look at, resembling Spirographs made into colourful, laser-spewing glitchbeasts, but they all have the same weaknesses: first you destroy their extremities, aiming at the claws or spikes or fists on the outer edges, and then you destroy the core. The only variation comes from their shape and size and attacks, but no matter what form they come in, all you need to do is keep the mouse aimed at them and the left-button pressed down as you move around. That's not even a cheat tactic that I secretly discovered and carried on exploiting: there's only one gun, and it has infinite ammo. It's brainless noise.The only variety comes from the pick-ups that pop-up during the action, which generally alter the gun's fire rate or power for a set number of rounds. At least they're stackable, so even if one change isn't terribly exciting, having a heavier, rapid-firing triple blaster that can reduce a Titan to rubble in seconds is one of the few times that fights don’t feel hugely unbalanced. But I didn't feel skilful in those situations, because all I did – and all I ever really did – was spam fire and hop about. I mostly felt like a fraud.To be fair, Dejobaan has at least tried to make it all fit: your mobility with the jetpack and jump-pads is pretty wide, allowing for sweeps and leaps all over the levels, though I'm surprised there's nothing like a speedy strafe dash to augment that. And it's slower than a typical bullet hell game, which is welcome, because when things get busy it's almost impossible to see anything among the explosions and the shaking and the mess it all makes.It's also really well made: it's absolutely gorgeous at every stage, and there are loads of visual variety between the levels and Titans. It includes an easy-to-use editor that helps you create arenas and Titans, and there's a weekly challenge that we can all take part in, as well as Steam Workshop integration allowing for all this to easily fall into place. If you do fall for Drunken Robot Pornography, at least it comes with a bundle.