This is Trevor Young’s of Gaming Cypher review of the PC version of Robot Arena III by developer Gabriel Interactive and publisher Octopus Tree.
With a name like Robot Arena III the expectations for the game are set pretty high. As one would expect from the title, this is a robot battle game that takes place in various arenas. The battles feature fully customizable robots across multiple game modes, with the ability to play with friends online being one of the game types.
What I found to be the most entertaining game mode was the exhibition mode. It allows you to play a quick match using any custom or premade robots in any of the arenas. In addition, you choose the opponents robots for the CPU to play with. Because it’s only a single match, you are able to use and play against many different robots while feeling out all of the arenas.
Another one of the game modes offered is career mode. This mode offers tournament style play across a multitude of brackets, each with slightly different rules and requirements. In this type of play you must use a bot that fits the specifications of the tournament, although it can be premade or custom. Some tournaments pit bots head to head in battles, while others will start the tournament in a free for all style four player match. In the career play, the opponent bots are not of your choosing, so keep that in mind when getting into it.
The final game mode option is online play. When selecting this option, you are taken to a screen that displays both your friends who are available for invite, as well as the available matches on your network. Online play as you may have guessed offers the opportunity to test your battle skills against an opponent other than a CPU. Online play is especially useful for testing your finest hand crafted rig against other players and seeing how you stack up against the competition.
To elaborate on this custom robot idea, I’ll discuss how you would go about creating your very own robot. In the Bot Lab you have the option of creating your own robot entirely from scratch, building the chassis layer by layer or starting from a premade template and adding on to a general base shape and design. There are a plethora of customizable aspects of the bot from armor to weapons to specifics of the internals of the robot. Additionally, there is also a paint shop to liven up your beast once you’ve solidified a design and a test option to test out your newest creations. Another clever aspect of the game is that you can go into the Bot Lab and assign your own keyboard options to use as the controls for your robot. Not altogether unheard of, but it is convenient considering how many different weapons and things can be placed on one robot.
As far as the gameplay for this game goes, it is much what you would expect. When entering a match you get a three second countdown just before the madness begins. Once the match starts you are free to move around and battle within the arena. If for some reason you find yourself trapped in a corner or flipped upside down and unable to move, you will eventually lose as you have not moved for a certain period of time. If you are able to keep your bearings and continue battle, you will attempt to use your weapons and armor to destroy all other opponents. You will be able to tell how much more damage you and your opponent can take based on the damage bars at the top of the screen. Additionally, you can see how much each delivered or sustained attack affected your robot, as that is also displayed on the screen.
All things considered this game offers a creative outlet that not a lot of games offer. This coupled with the ability to use your very own creation as your in game character solidifies this game as a force to be reckoned with in this style of game. I give Robot Arena III a solid 7 out of 10.
Here is the Robot Arena III launch trailer:
Robot Arena III is available now for PC on Steam.
PC Review
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Overall Score - 7/107/10
I am a former college football player and aspiring engineer. Despite being rather busy I enjoy gaming in my down time as well as a bit of writing to sharpen my creative thinking.
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