Fri 5th Aug 2011 by Matt Gaunt

Gatling Gears is a top-down stick twiddler shooter with no real story to talk of - you're in a mech suit and your job is destroy everything in your path and then take down the bosses. "The story is very light," admitted Kuppens. "But this was on purpose - we didn't want anything to get in the way of the action."

And action there is: you blast, bomb and shoot the shit out of everything in sight. Which on the evidence of the level we got to play is a lot of fun. The mechs - or 'walkers' are easy to control and can fire through 360 degrees. We were playing one of the later levels with upgraded walkers, capable of firing off rockets and guided bombs.

Adding to the carnage is the ability to blow holes left right and centre. "There's a high level of destructability," Kuppens told Made2Game. "You can pretty much everything up - anything that attacks, plus the structures."

While this is certainly adds to the sense of mayhem there's not much purpose in it. Unlike Vanguard's first title, turn-based strategy title Greed Corp, the mechanic isn't based on needing to take down buildings to progress.

Primarily a two-player co-op experience (you can do single player on both the online and offline modes), Gatling Gears is a solid, old fashioned shooter with plenty going for it as a fast and loose co-op experience, although we're not sure we're likely to put any serious time into the single player mode.

Gatling Gears release date: spring 2011

Available on PSN, XBL and PC download.