I, AI

While I, AI hasn’t done anything groundbreaking with the genre, it is a pretty solid scrolling shooter which looks pretty and plays well. While it was fun on the Xbox I can see the appeal of it being more on a handheld console such as the Switch, which I feel dipping in and out of this game would be more suited on.

What would you do if you were a sentient AI? In I, AI by Satur Entertainment and Sometimes You tries to answer that question. You play an AI that is designed to create military-grade weapons on a space station. You manage to escape in the first level, which to be honest, is one of the weirdest levels I have seen in a shoot-em-up before. After traversing a circuit board, you get in a spaceship and proceed to shoot your way to freedom.

Buy it if you want a game to enjoy after a long session playing Warzone or AAA that you have at the time. It is challenging and most of all, fun.

I, AI is a great entry in the shmup genre. While the genre can be daunting for its known high difficulty, I, AI feels like a perfect balance perfect overly hard and too easy; being able to upgrade your ship, and keep said upgrades even after dying, gives players a level playing field. Although some grinding might be required, it doesn’t feel like a chore. Fans of the genre will revel while being the perfect entry point for newcomers. Don’t miss this one.

I, AI really doesn’t push any boundaries or try anything new at all. It’s a budget title and I can cut it some slack for that. But I feel like the only people who could enjoy this are those that spent hours upon hours playing Space Invaders, Galaga, or R-Type back in the 80s, whom might get enough of a nostalgia trip from this to go play those games again. Anyone else will be reaching for the deck of cards pretty quickly.

It's absolutely vital that games, and probably most of all indie games, innovate and come up with new ways to approach genre play that's been around for a while...

I, AI has a good premise for a space shooter but doesn’t seem to do much with it. What is left is a decent space shooter that will appeal to fans looking for a simple to moderate challenge but won’t appeal to the hardcore space shooter audience. A fun enough space shooter but shame it didn’t do more to stand out from the rest.

I, AI is far from being one of the most innovative shooters in recent memory, and it clearly suffers a bit in its presentation department as a result of a pretty obvious microscopic budget. Still, what the developers managed to pull off with such limited resources is commendable.