Phantom Crash

"Brilliant at first, but then..."

Phantom Crash has certainly been something of a sleeper title over here in the UK. Although it has received some very good reviews from the Xbox magazines, very few people purchased it, and it fell from full price to bargain basement prices very quickly. I saw up a copy for a very reasonable £9.99, so decided to give it a bit of a whirl...

The gameplay centres around yourself as a newbie Scoobie pilot, coming into the ravished Mech battlegrounds of futuristic Toyko. You can choose between 3 different models of Scoobee - the light, maneuverable but weak Photon, the all-rounder Holy, or the slow, but well armoured Aeron.

Each robot is fully customisable in many ways, from its legs (wheels, legs, hover modules etc.), its weaponry (arm and shoulder weapons such as close range melee weapons, target seeking missiles, and cannon and bazooka fire), and even the appearance, by applying a variety of textures to each robot. Each robot also needs to be equipped with a CHIP, an intelligent module which acts as both your targeting systems, and also your buddy along the way. Additional options also come highly recommended, such as stealth and extra armour.

Once you have yourself set up with a Scoobee, you can then proceed on to the actual fighting section of the game. Initially, this seems to be very good, cruising around the battlefields, laying into anything that comes across your path. Killing opponents earns you money, which can then be reinvested into your Mech. Unfortunately, there are only 3 arenas in which you can fight, and although they come in day and night varieties, they soon become quite tiresome and repetitive.

The opponents that you fight also become repetitive after a while. The AI is not that impressive, and most enemies can be defeated quite easily, especially at the lower levels. Although the game does get harder as you go on, the enemies don't become more intelligent - they just get more powerful weapons and can shoot you down more quickly.

Although trying out all the different combinations of robots, weaponry and CHIPS is great fun at first, you'll soon cotton onto which weapons are any good, and also that weapon types vary very little between Mech manufacturers. You will quickly reach a stage where you simply fight to make tiny improvements to each part of the robot.

The game does feature a character based story line to help tide you through as you get past each level, but personally, I didn't think very much of it - the characters aren't particularly likeable, and seem to spend half of each conversation arguing with their CHIPS. A bit bizarre to say the least.

Anyway, to round up:

Presentation - the game visuals are generally very pleasing to the eye. The mechs are well detailed, although the arenas are a bit bland. The presentation throughout the menus is very nicely done and is very easy to navigate through as well.

Sound - a bit of a mixed bag here. The game features a large selection of tunes which you can choose to listen to during the battles. These range from some really good ones to some pretty abysmal stuff. In game sound effects could definitely have been improved - if I am shooting a robot with a rocket launcher, I want to hear a nice crunching impact, not the tinny little noise the you hear (the sound of your money incrementing)

Playability - initially, superb. Controls are responsive and logically laid out. After a couple of days though, the gameplay becomes so repetitive that you just can't be bothered with it any more. AI could definitely use improvement.

Lifespan - potentially very high, as the robots have thousands of possible permutations on offer. The story mode shoudn't take too long to complete if the game holds your attention for that long.

Overall - a half decent Mech-em-up that suffers from a lack of variety in the gameplay and a shortage of levels. You'll love it for a couple of days, but not much longer than that.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03