I was walking through Ubisoft’s demonstration booths when this game with an animated design caught my eye. It had hillbilly-looking characters carrying big guns who shot and destroyed pretty much everything that moved on the screen.

As I watched people play the game, I thought to myself “Goddamn! I need to try this!”

It looked like a cross between Contra, Metal Slug, and the Horde Mode from Gears of War,  It was Shoot Many Robots, a digital release from Demiurge Studios.

It had such a distinct gameplay idea and visual presentation that even David Jaffe, creator of Sony’s Twisted Metal series stopped in his tracks while we were conducting an interview later that day as he commented at how cool the game was.

Hit the jump for more information on Shoot Many Robots for the PlayStation Network.

Shoot Many Robots is a four player run-and-gun action game that literally throws hundreds of enemy robots at the players in waves reminiscent of Gears’ Horde mode. Each of the four playable characters are fully customizable from the weapons they carry, to the armors and accessories they wear.

The game is a sidescroller, a contra-style shooter with a hillbilly theme complete with their southern humor and stereotypes. These basic premise is that all four of the hillbilly heroes are on a quest to find and destroy the factory that’s been creating the evil robots that ‘s been terrorizing their town.

I played the game using the PlayStation 3 controller and found the controls to be very intuitive. It borrows it’s control schemes  a lot from other sidescrolling shooters on the market (with their very own spin on it). The ‘square’ button shoots, ‘X’ button jumps, “Triangle” switches weapons, and R2 slides characters left or right depending on where they’re facing.

Multiplayer is an important feature of Shoot Many Robots, with quick match for easier gaming with random strangers, or friend lobbies when players want to game with up to three of their buddies. The more players join the game, the more difficult each game becomes and the more enemies are thrown into the mix.

Players can expect Shoot Many Robots to arrive digitally on the PlayStation Network later this year .