Some games are just a little more straightforward than others. Rather than come up with some overarching reason to make you care about shooting lots of robots, Demiurge Studios’ Shoot Many Robots just throws waves at you and hopes the enemy variety and co-op fun is enough to keep you playing.

In our time with the game, we teamed up with three others to face the mechanical onslaught. The game supports (and is designed for) four-player online play, and though the game uses a shared screen, the team decided to only allow two to play locally. The game is structured in distinct waves of increasing difficulty, bringing along big robots, flying robots, shooting robots and such. While the players control similarly, each can use equipment to modify stats to suit. Among them? Beer hats and a particular Penny Arcade juicer.

The thing plays out in a side-scrolling arena, and you move back and forth across various terrain. You’ll aim forward unless you hold a shoulder button, which allows you to aim with the stick. You’ll need to coordinate to survive, with some needing to hold off ground troops while others aim for the skies, and you generally need to operate in two squads to cover both sides of the arena. This is clearly what makes the game compelling: these moment-to-moment tactical decisions that are the difference between getting overrun and making it to the next wave.

We’re interested to see what Demiurge will do to bring the game some much-needed depth, but the core arena shooting is a lot of fun. Shoot Many Robots is set for an early 2012 downloadable release on PSN and XBLA.