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FOR ANIME FANS, ROBOTECH would possibly rate as one of the oldest and most revered series, with a universe full of transforming robots and interesting storylines. Unfortunately games based on the Robotech mythology have consistently fallen short of fan's expectations. Now Robotech: Invasion seeks to address that with an ambitious action game based on the New Generation cartoon series.
Robotech: Invasion is both a first-person and third-person shooter telling the story of Robotech Expeditionary Force who are defending the Earth from the Invid, a race of parasitic aliens bent on conquering and transforming the Earth into their new homeworld. Players take the role of Locke, a rookie with the Force who must gradually build up his abilities with a range of missions in the fight against the Invid. It's not a particularly gripping story or one that is told very well, with its average voice acting and uninspiring cut-scenes, often making the game little more than a disjointed set of action sequences. Fans of the Robotech cartoons may get more out of it, though, as they will be able to put a bit more context into the narrative.
While on foot, players can use either a first-person or one of two third-person views. All of these work fairly well, although the first-person view can be a little sluggish and prone to blind spots. Control of the character in the on-foot sections though is quite responsive and easy to handle, with standard twin analogue stick controls seen in many shooters and a neat locking system. These work fairly much the same in both first and third person making switching between them relatively painless.
Promising to spice the gameplay up a little is the ability to switch into a motorcycle, Transformer-style. Unfortunately this transforms the characters into an unwieldy machine, hard to manouver and open to attack. This wouldn't be so bad if there were sections of the game built for the motorcycle – fast, smooth corners through interesting environments in a chase sequence perhaps, but there are an almost total lack of these. Switching to motorcycle mode is more likely to result in players careening into a wall after a tiny distance, only to get damaged even more than if they had walked.
Level design is similarly uninspiring for any on-foot sections, with large amounts of open, featureless land or long tunnels and canyons. Even on the harder difficulties these can be strangely devoid of enemies, with long walks sometimes required totally unopposed. Many of the missions require gong to a certain place to retrieve something or help someone. While this is at least interesting on the journey to the endpoint, the unopposed backtracking required after the mission feels like wasted time.
This wouldn't be so bad if the scenery was interesting to walk through, but much of it is sadly quite featureless and generic. Changing slightly from the cel-shaded look of the last game Invasion attempts to use a more adult presentation, more akin to Halo than anything else, but this just seems to highlight its failings even more. A lot of the environments consist of wide, open spaces removing a lot of the tactical element of the shooter, with combat often reduced to strafing and shooting at the same time. Invisible walls block most parts of the environment that do look interesting or look like cover, cutting player's options down drastically. |
