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Robots is the
recent addition to the Sierra line-up, the company that published Half-Life
2, Predator:
Concrete Jungle and Empire Earth. It’s a game that has not really
stirred-up the water in any way, being a Movie tie-in and a kid’s
game means that no one expects much of it at all. Even people that
are huge fans of the Movie may think twice about purchasing this
game, but I don’t really know why,  the title’s not that bad and
the Screenshots on the back look ok. It just seems that as soon as
people hear it’s a kid’s Movie tie-in they expect to be
let-down.
Having not ever seen the Movie does kind of distance me from
the whole thing, as the characters and places mean nothing to me and
the game really does assume you’ve seen the Movie at least once
before, so there goes all hope I ever had of picking up the story as
I went through knocking just a small amount of joy out of the whole
experience.
So ignoring the whole story side of the game, which I presume
follows a similar track to the Movie, judging from the many
scattered and varied clips from the Movie that are dotted around,
how does the game play? Well not too bad actually, it follows a very
standard Platforming-Adventure style of game, you run around
collecting Scrap Metal which you use as money and as ammo for your Arm
Cannon. Occasionally you get to chat to a character from the film,
these people will give you little tasks to do, which upon completion
you will get a prize for.
The way the money is used is quite unique to this type of
game, though it is well used throughout other games, Resident
Evil 4 for instance, to upgrade yourself you need to collect
enough Scrap Metal to buy an upgrade, then go to a Purchasing
Terminal which are dotted around the Levels,  some upgrades overwrite
previous ones you have others just keep upgrading. A few of the bits
you can buy are just for fans of the film, these are selections of
brief two minute Movies, cuts and outtakes to remind you of all the
joy the Movie gave you.
I have found a small problem with this system in this game;
the money is also used as ammo, so you have the option of shooting
things and having no money or not shooting things and being able to
upgrade your gun. Tough choice. I found that you can get through 90%
of the game without using the gun at all, letting you save your
money for other interesting things like new tricks for your
Wonderbot (The main character’s little helper) and you can also
buy the ability to see pointers to Mission Objectives and Gold Scrap
in your Target Screen.
On the whole the game is an enjoyable experience, the
graphics are reasonable for the time, the sound has all the clinks
and clanks in the right place. The Missions are the biggest let down
and because of the monotonous “I’ve lost these can you find
them” Missions, sometimes updated with “I’ve lost these can
you find them in the time limit” Objectives. Along with the
ridiculous Robots for the NintendoDS, I really wouldn’t
recommend this game to anyone who has more than a
four-and-a-half-second memory. But for fans of the film who’d just
like to play as their favourite character and meet the old
characters again this would be an idle piece of the escapism pie. 
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