Metal Arms: Glitch in the System

"Hacking is the Only Way to Fight"

I first heard of Metal Arms through a give-away game preview magazine. Despite the fact that it was just one screenshot and a tiny description, I didn't forget about it, and when I released I had to pick it up. I was not let down. Metal Arms: Glitch in the System is one of the best shooters in recent age, with a long, challenging, and extremely fun one-player campaign, a surprisingly good multiplayer, and some of the best humor to grace games ever.

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics in Metal Arms are not actually that good, but are filled with detail everywhere. Even if your eyes aren't going to bulge staring at the prettiness, you have to admit that the game has detail everywhere. Where some games would have an empty field, Metal Arms has a place filled with rocks, scrap metal, and junk. The characters are the same, not great looking, but amazingly detailed. Each robot seems has many parts, all of which fly everywhere where the robot is blown to pieces. This is especially true of the zombiebots, who shatter, then regenerate, having all of their shattered pieces form the bot again. Unfortunately, the water and fire effects are pretty pathetic, but since it rarely gets in the way of the gameplay, it's no big deal.

Music and Sound: 10/10
Firstly, the sound in Metal Arms is standard fare, full of the basic explosions, clanks, ratta-tat-tats, and other gun noises. The music on the other hand is not by any means standard. Though you on't be humming the tunes when you leave, they are extremely good while you play, and can really get you into the mood of the game. Also, there is variety, with some moody music for the morbot city, humorous ''spy'' music for Agent Shsh's theme, and the standard techno music that accompanies most shooters. However, the main reason Metal Arms gets a 10/10 here is that the voice acting is excellent. Glitch has the basic hero-type voice, but everyone else is anything but standard. The mils shriek in high-pitched voices to, ''Don't shoot me! Shoot the droid!'' The foul-mouthed Krunk speaks in an utterly disgruntled, censor-filled way. Pretty much everyone sounds great and ridiculous, like Slosh speaking about as fast as possible or Mozer speaking in long sighs.

Story
The story in Metal Arms is your basic, ''Single person saves the droids from extinction,'' story, but with enough humor to make it worthwhile. Put simply, Metal Arms is a sci-fi comedy. Krunk, the engineer will almost always elicit a laugh with his foul-mouthed humor, while pretty much every other character has some shining moment of humor. Even the basic baddies are amusing, farting randomly and screaming. All in all, Metal Arms is light on plot, but heavy on humor.

Gameplay: 10/10
Where it counts, Metal Arms delivers. The gameplay is amazing! Metal Arms is a third-person shooter (Much like MDK 2) and focuses on Glitch running through over 40 levels, taking on the mils. Amazingly, Swinging Ape games has put a surprising amount of innovation in the shooter genre, with clever weapons and ideas. Best of all is the control tether, a special weapon you get that allows you to hack into enemies. Once you have it, it's a matter of being able to sneak behind an enemy and blasting him with it. You can also occasionally log into a console and take control of an enemy that way. You also have the Recruiter grenade, which reprograms most enemies into joining forces with you. Glitch can also use the Cleaner, a grenade-type device that launches three devastating rockets. There is also the Ripper gun, which fires little spinning discs. These do almost no damage to enemies, but nail a limb an it will come off with a shot or too, allowing you to immobilize and pacify enemies.

Metal Arms also comes with plenty of vehicles to hop into, including tanks, RATs (big transports with guns), and hovercrafts. Some levels leave this out for you to borrow, while other levels are just in the given vehicle. (Several times you have to chase down enemies in a RAT.) You can also hop into gun turrets for quick mowing down of enemies. In addition to all these, Metal Arms continues further with stealth levels, that require you to avoid and/or take out enemies without them becoming too aware of you. To aid you is the rivet gun, which acts like a sniper rifle that fires exploding harpoon-type projectiles.

Also, enemies are plentiful. There are plenty of basic Mils, armed with simple weapons, but it doesn't stop there. There are Titans, which are equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers and can obliterate an unprepared Glitch. There are several varieties of flying enemies, including the hoverpack using trooper, which moves at lightning speed and can lay waste to Glitch if he can't quickly get his sights on them. Also, the enemies are smart. If you hit a Titan once, he will find you quickly, and won't give up unless you can hide for quite a long time, and even then will be very wary. Troopers will fly all around you, doing everything they can to keep away from your shots. Predators, large flying enemies will take cover whenever possible and nail you when you leave your covers. Even the Mils can be challenging, attacking from every direction, from a distance, and even jumping into empty vehicles to attack.

Multiplayer: 8/10
Metal Arms has some good multiplayer to go along with the single player, but sadly, it is somewhat lacking. The battles play pretty just like one-player in terms of abilities, which can be problematic if somewhat uses recruiter grenades to built up an army then jumps in a tank, they're pretty much unstoppable. Also, there is no way to turn on AI bots, and the game is pretty much boring without at least three players, leaving you at odds end if you only have one friend to play with.

Controls: 10/10
Smooth controls. Analog moves Glitch, C-Stick turns and looks, R fires right hand, L fires left, etc. The controls are manageable and friendly to anyone used to console shooters, first or third person. (Though the third person aspect may take a little time to adjust to.)

Length/Replay: 10/10
Metal Arms is... 42 levels long. Many levels taking over an hour for your first play-through.
Metal Arms has... Nuts of Steel difficulty, encouraging multiple play-through's.
Metal Arms has... A multiplayer that is good with at least 3 players.
Metal Arms has... Secret chips to collect to unlock multiplayer stuff, and well over 100 of these chips.

Basically, Metal Arms will last you a while.

Difficulty: Medium
Metal Arms is not really hard, but definitely not an easy game. Most levels are very tough, but the checkpoints make all of them manageable, if long. (I've spent over an hour on quite a few levels.) Also, some of your first-time encounters with certain enemies (Titans in particular) can leave a player very frustrated, as the game's learning curve is very sharp.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/04