Custom Robo

"I'd rather play Armored Core"

This game has a neat idea but just doesn't deliver with the gameplay. I throughly enjoy the customazation aspect but the other parts just suck. The story leaves much to be desired and the contols could have used some more fine tuning in devolpment.

Story: 6/10
The whole idea of the ultimate robo is good but the part about world destruction has been used about a million times. And it is no different here. Some one tried to destroy the world, failed and is trying agian. Hmmmmm where have I heard that before. The idea of waking up, doing your work, going home, waking up, doing your work, going home, etc. Is just stupid and they could have done much much more with this.

Graphics: 9/10
Yes this game is visually pleasing. The character models look great and the robos look awesome. Pods, bombs, guns, buildings, it all looks very good. The hit detection is great looking and explosions are very well done. Hands down the best part of the game.

Cotrols: 6/10
Work fairly well but could have worked great with just a little more attention paid to them by the games makers. The Z button is put to terrible use as is the C-stick, and Control Pad. Hitting your target with bombs is also way to hard using the R button and the control stick in conjunction.

Gameplay: 6/10
This part is okay with a few minor glitches. The most of which being the first person to break their robo out of there cube and get the first hit most of the time wins. And in the heat of battle this turns into nothing more then a furious button mashing fest. Pods are almost inpossible to hit your enemy with as are bombs unless there down. The charge attack does way to much damage as using only a few of those with a little help from your gun could tottaly wipe out your enemy. AI is also pretty dumb. It rarely ducks for cover behing walls and goes out into the open unprotected to much. Pods and bombs are used at random by them and thier guns rarely hit. Most of the game was way too easy and I think I only lost about 5 times while playing through the whole game. The only part of gameplay that I really liked was the first person view. 2 on 2 games get way to hectic and it is very hard to make out your allies from your enemys.

Sound: 8/10
yes, yes it had good sound. But to be honest who really cares that much about sound. if it's really bad then it can help ruin the game but when it's good no one even notices. The sound is good in this game while in battle but I think it would have been better had it had some voice-overs.

Relpay Value: 9/10
Good relpay value. It takes a long time to aquire all of the parts and test them out the way you see fit. Arcade mode is fun as you can test all of your new parts against the ridicously stupid A.I. Yipee. Multiplayer is fun becaese no one could possibley be as dumb as the A.I. in this game. Tag battles with friends are a plus.

Overall
This game wasted tones of potentional with the customazatin and ultimatley falls apart with the dumb A.I. Another bad thing is there is way too much talking in between battles. I ended up skipping as much of it as possible just to battle. Then I rememberd what a big let down that was.

Rent or Buy: Rent
It has some replay value but the main mode just isn't enough to keep you intersted for that long. Only rent it if there are no more copies of Spider-man 2, Zelda, Splinter Cell, or Metal Gear Solid left.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/04