TOMG's Blog

Let us begin our very first game review, Attack of the 50ft Robot! (The exclamation mark is part of the title. Thats an extra 5% right there)

Just basically imagine this poster, as a game

Ok, before I get into this, I think its only fair that I point out the bad bits now. I know that seems odd, but trust me, this game is so incredible, I want to be able to finish on a good note. Ok, so;

• The physics can get a bit laggy at times. However, this may be due to the system been based on Physx, which is designed to run on Nvidia cards, and as you can tell from my earlier post, I’m now running, ATI, so I don’t know.
• Its crashes fairly often.

Thats it basically. This is possibly the best 5 mintue game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played a LOT of games.

The Development Team

Ahh, Digipen Games, my old friends, how I’ve missed you. Its been so long since Narbacular Drop, and I feel sad that its taken so long for me to find you again. Oh, but now that you’re here. I feel safe knowing that whilever is spewing out KillSplode 4 and Modern War Death Gear 8, there will always be you.

Digipen Games are a small game development studio made up of students, based in Washington. You can read about them here, but basically these guys know what there doing. In terms of indie developers, there like grandpas, who lived through multiple wars, and have all the tricks of the trade to show for it.

The Game

I’m gonna be honest, presentation is where this game excels.

It’s presented as a grainy, 50’s style horror movie, you know like the old War of the Worlds, and other old sci-fi films? The main menu consists of “Play Feature Film” or “Loop Endless Reel”, and such, never breaking immersion. In game, it gets even better. The graphics are constantly distorted with grain, as if you’re watching a real old film, and the music is classical all the way. The game is LITERALLY like you’re watching a 50’s sci-fi film, except you’re controlling the huge robot.

The use of colour is also excellent. Everything is displays in monotone (again, with the 50’s immersion), except for the colour red. This provides an incredible look, as all the lasers in the game are red. Yeah, that’s right, I said lasers.

DIE TINY HUMANS!

PATHETIC MORTALS!!!

You have to understand, this is a game where you shoot lasers from your eyes. This is a game, where you take off your own head, hold it in your hands, and still shoot lasers from the eyes. Thats the level of insanity what we’re talking about here.

Right click shoots your hands as rockets, and left click grabs. Q and E shoot lasers. Thats it basically. The right-click is hilarious, when your surrounded by helicopters, and the last resort is to start firing your own hands at them. The grab is even better. It basically grabs whatever is close to you, tanks, chunks of building, or, if you can’t quite get anything in reach, you take off your own head.

Thats normal, right?

I have to say, using your own head as a bowling bowl to destroy buildings has to be my favourite part.  There a certain satisfaction when you see it rolling towards some tanks, as you’re now running around headless, still using both your hands as rockets, and then seeing them go flying, only to have your body generate another one. Glorious.

The game also has some form of narrative as well, which is unusual for games like these, which are basically tech demo’s. By the end of the level, you realise that you are actually trapped in a 50’s sci-fi horror movie, as one of the buildings cracks open, and the roof turns into a UFO.

Also, I don’t wana spoil the ending, but this isn’t even the final battle.

So, final words. No, this game isn’t the most polished out there, and no, it’s not the least buggy (I’ve loaded it about 10 times, and I’d say 6 of those were crashes) but it

just doesn’t matter. This is what indie gaming is about – having an idea, then having the guts and hard work to make that idea real, regardless of how rough it is around the

edges.

Concluding Verdict: 9/10

Final Note: It would have been a 10, but it just crashed once to often for an indie game. Make it a tad more stable, and you have yourself a winner.