Roboblitz  Review - Page 1

- Luke, Staff Writer

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Title: Roboblitz .............................................. System: Xbox Live Arcade .............................................. Genre: Action .............................................. Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios .............................................. Developer: Naked SKy Entertainment .............................................. Release: 12/6/2006 .............................................. Online: No .............................................. ESRB: Rating Pending (RP) .............................................. If there was ever a game that screamed mass-appeal on the Xbox Live Arcade, this is it. Running on the same engine that powers the almighty Gears of War, Roboblitz gives you all the proof in the world that even the smallest of developers can churn out amazing results. It isn’t just the sheer fun of Roboblitz either; it is the fact that everything has had an amazing amount of care and attention lavished upon it. The fun, the intuitively fresh gameplay, and the seemingly stunning graphics, makes you think one thing: Roboblitz has it all. Considering Roboblitz is fewer than 50 MB in game size, it looks incredible in every single way. It is simply astonishing how well the game looks when you consider the size limit the Arcade specifies for all games. Running on the Unreal 3 Engine, every detail you would expect to see in a next-generation game is there. Fully rendered environments, jam-packed with beautiful textures, are commonplace as you traverse through Roboblitz’s 19 levels. And although some are fairly bland and generic in terms of art, they all look gorgeous – in a technical sense. It also helps that Roboblitz features a dynamic lighting engine, which makes shadows in particular look ultra realistic and sleek. Add some superbly modeled characters, and you have yourself a game that wouldn’t feel out of place on your local game stores shelf. Yes, Roboblitz looks that good. Now that I’ve stopped dribbling over the visuals of the game, the gameplay is just as impressive. You take the role of Blitz, who is a simple utility robot designed to maintain maximum efficiency on your space outpost. Your tasks are fairly minimal, and generally Blitz’s day consists of moving a barrel from one point to another. That is of course, until space pirates invade your base looking for the Space Cannon, which is in full view on the top level. Their aim? To destroy and loot from every nearby frontier base. Of course, it is your job to stop them. You must go through numerous enemies and turn on the ships defenses, which will successfully stop the pirates charge. While it may seem slightly shortsighted, Roboblitz gameplay is incredibly fun, thanks to the robust physics engine. Also, the presentation and controls are top notch. Players will use Blitz’s arms to pick up pretty much anything, which will come handy when solving some relatively tricky puzzles along the way. As you progress through the storyline, you unlock a gravitational linking gun, which has to be one of the most well thought out weapons I have ever seen in a videogame. Essentially, you can send a small beam to one point, and then link it to another. This will hoist the objects in midair and allow you to manipulate them when you see fit. It is also used for numerous objects at the same time. Handy is not even a good word to describe it. If you are feeling particularly savage, you can link your enemies up together until they explode. The possibilities with this weapon in particular are endless, and I’ll leave it up to you to figure out some really intuitive ways of completing objectives, and more importantly, kicking some machine booty. But the array of weaponry doesn’t end there. Throughout each level, you can pick up small tokens known as ‘upgradium’. When taken back to your home base, and you can construct various different gadgets and technical gizmos in order to further your attacking strengths. All the usual suspects are there: plasma guns, EMP electrodes, and of course, a nice stun gun. But there are however, some really intuitive and eye pleasing guns which will make you smile, namely the firework launcher. Let one of these babies go, and your cocky enemies will receive a nice lift into the air, accompanied by sound effects, until they literally explode into an assortment of nuts and bolts. However, there are a few noticeable problems in Roboblitz, and they mainly derive from the physics engine that Naked Sky has implemented so well in other areas. As Blitz himself is completely driven by physics code, it can become difficult to navigate well-built areas, as the sensitivity will often shake him around the environment. It also carries on to his mechanical arms and picking up objects. Truly, though, it’s only tedious to a degree. Sometimes they just won’t connect with objects that you are trying to lift. These can really hinder your gaming experience, but it shouldn’t put you off the game, as everything is implemented well aside from these issues. There is however, one thing that Roboblitz does not have going for it, and that is the audio direction. There is some horrible, and I mean horrible background music when you are playing the game. Thankfully, you can turn it off or use your 360’s built in music player. Not only is the music bad, though, the sound effects are equally annoying. Constant whirring by other characters really gets on your nerves after about ten minutes, and Blitz himself can become annoying at times. But don’t let these issues put you off buying the game, as Roboblitz is fantastic. It has a steep price, with 1200 Microsoft Points needed to purchase the game, but Roboblitz is well worth it. It is a breath of fresh air into the plethora of games being released at the moment, and deserves a solid score. Pages 1   The Core Score Overall 7.8 Fun 7.2 Gameplay 7.6 Graphics 9.3 Audio 6.0 Replay 8.0     Kid Safe Score      10  Great    A lack of abusive words or gore make Roboblitz a game anyone can enjoy   How we score games