Robotica

"Grainy graphics destroy a great game."

Welcome to my review for Robotica, a game lost in the sands of time. It came out quite early in the life of the saturn, and the high prices for the saturn at launch made it a rarely purchased console, leading to many of its first generation games just simply vanishing, and this is one of them. And now for a review of the game very few people heard of!

Story 4/10

A space station in need of destruction, a horde of rebellious bots, a brave pilot, and a motorbike/robot thingy. These are the elements that make up Robotica.
And that's pretty much that. The story is pretty thin, obviously, but it's just an excuse to romp through a space station and blow stuff up. It's been done before, and so has this style of game, but this game innovates a bit and tried so hard to set itself apart from the crowd, even though it wound up sinking into the abyss with the rest of the imposters. In the end, the story is a good excuse to do what the game does, so I guess it works, though it's nothing to write home about and you can easily play the game without knowing or caring about it.

Gameplay 8/10

This game is great fun. Every time you play it, the entire space station is randomly generated. This does have its ups and downs. The game is an oldschool first person shooter, so sometimes you're just playing find the key, and other times just simply find the exit, or find the computer terminal, etc. But this is shaken up by the random generation of the levels, as it's never the same. Different weapons, enemies, and leves await you every time you boot the game up. Aside from that, it is a pretty standard FPS. It feels very 2D, there is no jumping, no huge outdoor environment. just hallways and rooms. You feel very alone and lost. That's cause you are! There's a map if you get lost, and guns if you feel lonely. Lots of enemy types, and loads of different guns await. The guns, as with all the oldschool FPS simply vary in damage/rate of fire output, but your guns are upgradable. Finding ammo for them can vary each time you play the game, as well as finding health pickups. Sometimes there are simply more than others. Thankfully most enemies will drop some form of pickup for you.

Controls 6/10

The controls fit the game fine, just don't expect a circle strafing robot of doom. You can strafe, shoot, turn, shoot, advance, shoot, retreat, and shoot. The controls work fine, but you are driving a robot, and they make the game feel like you are. You aren't as agile as a human, plain and simple. But you have lots of armor and guns. But you have a pretty high top speed. The game threw a bit of innovation in the controls department. Your robot has a large rear wheel in all of the cinematics. And boy can you use it. Sorta. Your robot can dash, flying down the corridors, zooming through the rooms. But there is a bit of a setup time before and after the dash, and you can't strafe while dashing, so use it tactically.

Sounds 5/10

The sounds are a bit grainy, and the music is gloomy yet forgettable techno/industrial music. Nothing to write home about, but nothing soul grating either. All sorts of mechanical clangs and whirs from your robot and the enemy robots. Fitting, but not special.

Graphics 5/10

The graphics are probably the worst thing about the game. They are intentionally dark and gloomy, to add suspense and claustrophobia to the atmosphere of the game. However, this is not the problem. The problem is that most things in the game look just plain grainy. The game is old, and it shows. The enemies are not 3d rendered, just 2d sprites, like the old doom games. Except grainy. Most saturn 2d effects are pretty nice. But not the graphics of this game. Nothing makes the game unplayable, though, but those who care more about graphics than gameplay will probably hate this game.

So to conclude, for a fun FPS on your saturn, pick up this forgotten gem. It may be a bit rough around the edges, but it can be found for very cheap. I just can't get over how fun the randomly generated levels make the game. I would love to see a modern revisit of the idea instead of the prescripted levels of modern games.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/20/06