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M-Bot

This is a new medal game that came out today, created by MindChamber and Evan Greenstone. It's INCREDIBLY AWESOME. Here's how you play:

Gameplay

You are M-Bot, lowly moderation bot of the Newgrounds website, and your job is to get rid of the spammers. To do this, you run around shooting them in the street, because you're just that awesome. Some of the enemies have ranged attacks, so you'll need to be able to dodge, and there are cars that come at you, so you'll need to dodge or jump over those as they come. Remember that you can also move forward and backward, as this will be necessary for jumping over cars.

There are two options for controlling M-Bot: mouse or arrow keys. If you're using the mouse it's easy to move quickly across the screen, but it takes some practice to learn how to navigate precisely, through the minefields and obstacles. The arrow keys are arguably easier for pricise navigation, but I've found it too easy to accidentally go across the screen when I don't want to. I prefer the mouse, but others may not.

Score and life are determined by how many (gold) shields you pick up, in one way or another. If your score/life drops below 0, you lose and have to try again. You get shields by killing enemies, and the larger your current juggle when an enemy bites the dust, the more shields they drop. You can juggle more than 1 enemy at a time, and hitting any enemy being juggled will increase the juggle combo, but as soon as one of them hits the ground the juggle combo will be reset to 0. So you can theoretically juggle 3 enemies for a combo of 80, get a 4th in the juggle and lose him immediately, then lose the other 4, and you'll only get about 100 shields out of all that. However, your juggle combo will not be reset if you take damage.

There are also large silver shields that are sometimes dropped, which govern weapons upgrades. You start with a single cannon, then you go to a double, then a triple. If you collect a large silver shield while already at the triple gun, you'll gain the ability to press Z to transform to K9 mode. While in K9 mode you cannot be harmed, all your attacks are melee, and you move faster, while looking like a mechanical dog. When K9 mode is almost over you'll hear a power-down sound, which will give you enough time to get somewhere safe so you don't take damage after returning to your single gun, to do it all over again.

Some shields are already placed on the level before you begin. There are 30 at the start of the main game, and then they will show the safe path through obstacles. Aside from the first 30, these will all have shadows under them, so you'll know where to go to stay safe.

When you take a hit, the amount of life you lose is proportional, rather than fixed. That means you'll lose more for taking a hit with 1000 life than you will for taking one with 100 life. Hit Detection is generous in this game, which works for you when you're trying to string a juggle, but works very much against you as well when you're trying to dodge cars. You also don't have to be on the ground to get a shield, which means you can jump, go across the screen to get some shields, then come back over to where you started while still in mid-air if there are cars in the way.

Enemies and Obstacles

Enemies: There are two main forms of enemy in the game, being enemies with whips and enemies who shoot fireballs (survival mode only). These can be shot, juggled, and destroyed for shields as outlined above. They often occur at the same time as cars do.

Cars: They travel the city streets, running over the poor M-Bot and doing him damage. You can jump over them, and you can evade them, but except while in K9 mode you cannot destroy them. If you destroy a car in K9 mode it will give you shields.

Minefields: They look like stereotypical game mines, grey circles with red buttons on top. If you run too close to them, the buttons turn green, and if you step on them or if you are jumping above them, they'll explode. If you're standing on them when they go off, you'll take damage, but if you're in the air above them you'll be okay. There will usually be shields hovering to guide you through, and you will not encounter enemies in a minefield.

Posts: These only occur in the main game, and are always found in a straight line. They are preceded by construction barricades, so if you get in line between the barricades you'll be okay.

Walls: These occur one after the other, and they block the entire road. Each wall has a weak spot, which will be indicated by a series of shields leading up to it, so just keep firing as you collect shields and you won't have any problems. If you're in K9 mode you can go through the wall anywhere.

The Bus: Main game only. The bus heads off toward the right shortly after starting the main game, and then turns around partway through the level to attack you. It will toss enemies at you, which can be shot, juggled and killed, but which will do damage to you if they hit you first. It will sometimes charge you, which will be preceded by a very obvious warning, and after you take away about half its life it will also spin around 180 degrees and fire a giant red laser at you. If you enter K9 mode when the bus attacks, and you attack the bus constantly, K9 mode will last for the entire duration of the fight, making it rather trivial. You will, however, be reduced to a single gun afterward.

The Final Boss: COL-LAB

When you reach the end of the streets part of the main game, you'll get to fight COL-LAB. Whatever weapon you had going in, you will be reduced to a single gun for this fight. Once you reach COL-LAB, you're here until you beat him, no matter how many tries it takes. At the beginning of the fight you will have your score set to 1000, and if you beat him without having to retry, this will be added to your score from the street section to get your final score. If you do retry, then whatever your final score against COL-LAB is will be your final score for the game.

You cannot hurt COL-LAB unless you shoot him in the head, or use his own attacks against him. He starts off with two attacks. His more common attack is to throw spinning blades at you, which you can deflect back to hit him. They will sometimes come through the air, and sometimes along the ground, so be careful which one he sends at you. He will also charge at you, with a predictable warmup, and all you can do is get out of the way.

When you've dished out enough damage to him, he'll drop a large silver powerup shield and some bombs. Grab the silver shield and you'll get a megagun for about 22 shots, which you can use to damage him without having to jump. You'll need this gun about 5 times to defeat him. When the megagun runs out, you'll be back to your single gun again.

When you've knocked him down to half his life, he'll start throwing cars at you as another random attack. All you can do is get out of the way. When he's down to a quarter of his life, he'll throw 4 subway cars at you in sequence, and it's hard to dodge them all. These are all of his attacks.

When his life is all gone, a shield will show up over his head, and you can jump on him. You'll be faced with some quicktime events, which are jump, fire, jump, fire, jump, fire. Get through them, and you win.

To make it easier to fight him, try to push him back to the right. He likes to be in front of you, and the further to the right he is the more time you'll have to deflect his blades back at him. it will also give you room to back up when he starts throwing cars. Also note that the blades he throws come side by side, not in a line, so you'll likely need some vertical movement to deflect them both, especially in the air, or else you'll get hit. When it comes to dodging the subway cars, just do your best to move diagonally, and don't anticipate too much or he'll throw at the middle and you'll get hit no matter where you are.

Main Game
This is broken into the following areas, which can all be passed according to what's been outlined above:

- 30 Shields (initial life)
- Cars and enemies
- Posts
- Cars and enemies
- Bus
- Cars and enemies
- Minefield
- Cars and enemies
- Walls
- Cars and enemies
- COL-LAB

Survival Mode
In this, your score always goes up, and shields and damage affect your Fuel instead. Survival mode alternates between cars and enemies, and minefields with a single row of mines and a single row of shields. You've just got to last as long as possible. Doing this will require avoiding K9 mode unless absolutely necessary, because you'll need the triple gun after getting to about 10k points in order to keep up with your fuel loss. If you enter K9 mode later than about 5k, you probably won't make it to 15k, and if you enter at 10k or later your game will likely end about 1400 later.

Survival Mode Weapon Quirks: Once you have the ability to go to K9 mode, you don't lose it until you use it. That means you can be down to a single gun, and still be able to use it. This may become invaluable toward the endgame. It also carries over to the next game, so if you finish one Survival game without using K9, but with the ability, you'll start the next Survival game with the ability. Also, if you finished your previous Survival game with a double gun, then your first upgrade in your next game will be straight to Triple. Finally, if you take a hit with the triple gun, the readout will say you're down to a single, but you'll really have a double.

MINEFIELDS ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND. I know it may sometimes seem like they are, but they're really not. Especially late in the game, when they become convoluted and the shields they provide aren't enough to keep you fully charged in the first place. Further, it takes a while to get a decent combo going, and if it's late in the game then by the time you get your combo you're already dead. I've never gotten more than 11k points in a game that was minefield-heavy. If you hit a minefield between 11k and 14k, your game is over. If you hit one at 14k, just collect all the shields and you'll probably reach 15k for the medal. Note that the location and quantity of minefields is random, so you won't get two games the same.

However, there's a quirk you can use to get past the minefields fairly easily. Whenever possible, stay in the middle rather than following the shields. The generous hit detection means you'll pick them up anyway. Similarly, you'll want to avoid the urge to stay toward an edge of the screen for safety, because being in the middle (just below the solid lines in the street) will give you the greatest chance at killing everything, again due to the generous hit detection. Just remember that all the cars except those at the very top will be able to hit you too, so you'll have to be nimble. I got the medal the first time I used this strategy, after failing countless times by sticking to the bottom.

Finally, you live and die by the size of your combo, but all those giant combos are meaningless if you run out of fuel before collecting on them. So it will be worth your while to let someone fall to the ground during a big combo once in a while so that you can collect on their shields.

5 medals, 250 points
BounceOnMyLazor (25): String a 50 hit juggle on an enemy. Juggle rules are outlined above. The triple gun is all but necessary for getting this medal because it fires faster and has a larger hit area. The in-game popup for this medal is wonky, sometimes not showing up at all, other times showing up and not going away, blocking part of the play area.

JustBeatIt (25) (not JustBeATit): Beat the game. As long as you make it to the boss in the main game, you can just keep trying him until you win.

3K9 (50): Uses K-9 mode 3 times in main game. You get access to K9 mode by collecting a levelup shield while at level 3. Once you've done that, press Z to activate K9 mode. To get the medal, activate it as soon as you can, in order to get back to level 1 as quickly as possible to give you lots of time to build back up to it again. Going for this medal will make it extremely difficult to get CitySweeper, because the single gun you're returned to when K9 ends just doesn't have enough kick to get you shields fast enough.

CitySweeper (50): Get 1500 in main game. You must play well, Padewan. Save K9 mode for the bus, as the dudes it throws at you are really annoying and sometimes hard to dodge, and for after the wall segment. If you do this, and don't get hit during the game, you can actually enter the final battle with COL-LAB with a score that's already over 1500, meaning all you have to do is defeat COL-LAB without dying and you'll get this medal. Remember how many points you have going in to COL-LAB, and if your COL-LAB score stays above 1500 - that, you will get the medal.

DaLongestMile (100): Get 15000 points on survival. Save your K9 mode for the first minefield, if you must use it at all, and then put it away forever. This is because your life/fuel will be going away too quickly to regain it with the single gun, and after K9 mode that's what you go down to. So when you get the triple gun, just keep it. If you're going to run out of fuel close to the 15k mark, back up all the way to the left. The reason for this is that the score keeps counting until you run off screen to the right, so the longer you make that take the better your chance of fluking it. There is no popup for this medal.