2003 Majesco
The latest craze in niche television programming comes in the form of robot battles. What started off as a very professional event in Japan has seemingly turned into an Americanized robotic form of wrestling. Originally, Japanese engineers would square off in a sumo-style match with radio-controlled robots that were designed for one purpose: to push the other robot out of the ring. Today, western culture has redesigned the event with heavy music, hard hitting weapons, paint jobs, and even celebrity endorsements.
Comedy Centrals BattleBots is one variation of this American style robot fighting. Two teams go head to head with remote-controlled fighters, trying to destroy each other. Of course, being adapted into an x-treme style sport, there are now deadly traps and a large serving of flash. It really does seem like watching the WWF bouts with robotic opponents.
The Game Boy Advance incarnation of the show was developed by Cave + Barn and published by Majesco. Take a look at what the council had to say about the game.
Features- Four player simultaneous play.
- Popular bots from the show are included.
- Manage money and parts in tournament mode.
Jason Nuyens: This game had a lot of problems from the get-go. Mainly the lack of any actual fun detracts away from the title's appeal. When you play, you basically just mash your weapon button as much as you can while driving yourself head-first into opponents. The fact that I could complete even the super heavy weight tournaments by either mashing the A button or keeping it pressed down is unforgivable. If you play a fighter game and can complete the game without using one iota of original strategy, there is a problem.
The gameplay basically consists of you gearing up your bot, and then heading to the arena to battle it out. Once there, you will mash that weapon button as fast as you can to attack your opponent. 90% of the time, this will be all it takes to win. Of course, there are obstacles littered around the arenas. Some are obviously a bit more dangerous than others, but I didnt care. I would drive over saws, get pounded by giant mallets, and still destroy my opponent without breaking a sweat.
I suppose if you wanted to you could develop a healthy strategy to let the hazards destroy your opponent. That is, if the controls and pacing were better. The bots run around so fast that it feels completely un-natural. Say you want to push your opponent into a giant vat of acid. As he comes around you quickly ram into him and begin pushing. Problem is that if he starts to slide out of your push, you have to re-adjust and then the plan really falls apart. I tested this many times with nothing more than frustration to show for it. The problem can be linked back to the almost every aspect of the game itself. The biggest culprit here, being the lack of any physics.
Even though I dont follow the television series religiously, I do know one thing. Bots have tons of problems in real-world battles. Hammers get stuck, bots get rolled over (and cant get back up), saws get jammed, etc. In the GBA game, you have weapons like a big rotating blade that will never get caught on another bot, even after it makes contact with it. It gives the title a very tacky feeling knowing that physics are never taken into account. The only physics that are taken into account really is the hit detection. But for a sport that relies heavily on limitless real-world variables, a simple collision detection engine will not suffice.
The only fun I would say that I had with the title is when I got into a heated battle with some of the last bots in the game. Although I was still button mashing, the tiny bit of added difficulty was as close as I got to a satisfying experience. Even the pit area of this game, which allows for bot customization, is so clunky I shook my head. There were points where I accidentally got rid of my weapon (completely my fault, I hit the wrong button) and I didnt have enough money for a replacement. So you know what I had to do? Go to the arena unarmed. How is that for ridiculous?
In case youre still wondering, the graphics consist of sprites to try and simulate a 3D setting. It takes images of bots from different angles similar to the way Mario Kart 64 handled it. The arenas are giant pre-rendered images with all sorts of sprite-animated hazards littered about. The graphics dont really work that well. Its not so much that the animations and backgrounds are horrible, but rather that the two dont fit well together. More than once I saw a bot on top of an object that was supposed to be in the background. For instance, a bot was shown to be on top of a fence-like structure. If youre going to do sprite based engines, you should at least put in the time to make sure there are several layers that wont glitch out on the player. Even the menus had washed out color palettes and below par art design.
The audio is standard fare. It is completely forgettable, and definitely worthy of the old mute feature. You will hear the occasional digital sound or voice clip, but otherwise its really nothing to write home about. But what do you expect from a title that is meant to be about fighting robots? If you can imagine sound effects for saws and metal hammers in your head, chances are youre hearing almost exactly what it sounds like in the game. Nothing too special Im afraid.
To put it bluntly, this game just isnt worth the price tag. I completed the entire circuit in less than two hours I believe. Going to play arcade style in brawl mode let me play 3 CPUs with power ups and all, but it still didnt shine. It all boils down to the all-important fun factor, which this game ultimately fails at. Mashing the weapon button while mindlessly driving into my opponent is not my idea of a good time, and Im quite confident that you will agree. Save your pennies folks.