This is the first shoot-em-up that this site has had in months. Sadly, though, it doesn't offer much to shoot-em-up enthusiasts. Since I am one, my review will be slightly biased, but there really isn't anything else that I can say about it.
It's a Euroshmup(European shoot-em-up), which means that we get pretty graphics, nice sounds, and subpar gameplay. Typical of the genre, the enemy bullets travel too fast to dodge with any real certainty, and the player's hitbox is large. These two factors necessitate a health bar, which has the unpleasent effect of justifying impossible situations while simultaneously detaching the player from the experience. If you get hit by a bullet, it's no big deal - it'll take about ten more to kill you. You can raise the difficulty, but that just makes it even less fun. One major annoyance is that your ship has to land at the end of each level, and that the process takes about ten seconds. If you aren't able to take out the homing turrets that usually guard it, you are forced to watch helplessly as your ship is destroyed. Not that it matters, since respawns are instantaneous and even place the ship in the same position that it was already in. There are also generous amounts of powerups - too generous, in my opinion. This game was apparently designed for casual gamers, as there's no depth whatsoever.
The graphics, as expected, are quite pretty. The enemy designs are nice and varied, and the models are well-done, with detailed textures and decent polygon counts. Missile exhausts leave nice, translucent trails, and the particle effects in the explosions are top-notch. The only real annoyances are that enemy animations tend to be jerky, and that the lighting feels unrealistic.
The sounds are well-designed, too - the music doesn't drone, and everything sounds the way that it should. It isn't quite as good as the sound in Jets 'n' Guns, but it works well enough.
The theme is very similar to other basic alien invasion themes, except that the aliens are using robots to attack the Earth. Meh. The menu screen has no bearing on the gameplay, with a muscular commando preparing to shoot a shambling robot, but at least it's well-drawn.
Overall, I give MachineHell a score of six out of ten(five for gameplay, seven for graphics, seven for sound, and five for theme). The graphics and sounds are nice, but the unimaginative enemy patterns and boring gameplay kill it for me.
Small side note: You can set the controls to either keyboard or mouse, but the game will always show the default mouse controls before levels.
If anybody wants a decent shoot-em-up, they should visit the SHMUP-DEV contest pages: