Robocraft | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the analog being, G.E.M.Simov, a fellow that does not depend on poopy smart devices to do everything for it, and I’ve come to preach about the goodness of distancing oneself from robots by talking about “Robocraft”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Robocraft is a Third Person Shooter with Robot Crafting elements that’s based on teams engaging in battles and fighting over objectives. Those objectives can range from controlling a point to killing a certain number of robots first.
The Player is given 3 different robots when they begin their adventure, each with different movement parts and weapons, and is sent out into the wild world. These robots can be upgraded and made stronger, or the Player can make themselves entirely unique robots, but it would not be too bad an idea to try those three out first.
So, there are different types of movement in Robocraft - there are legs, which allow for jumping, with the Spacebar, and crouching with the Control key, and which move back and forth with the W and S keys and left and right with the A and D keys. Leg Robots are very stable and their mobility does not get affected by damage taken. However, due to the length of the legs, their suspension is incredibly tall, making them bigger and easier to hit.
Then there are flying robots, who technically hover. They can ascend slightly by pressing the Spacebar and can descend by pressing the Control button. They also move forward and backwards with the W and S keys and go left or right with the A and D keys. Those are slightly faster than Leg Robots, but they do start going out of control when they suffer damage, becoming almost inoperable if they lose all propellers on one side.
Lastly, but not least, a wheel/treads robots. Those are incredibly fast, but they have no vertical mobility, and also can not go left or right by just pressing a button. They go either forward with the W key or backwards with the S key, and have the option to steer themselves by rotating the camera. However, they are way faster than all other possible modes of movement…
Though they also risk becoming inoperable after sustaining damage, incapable of steering if they do not have an even number of wheels on each side. On top of that, the wheel/threads Player risks flipping over when being too zesty with turns or terrain elevation. As another bonus, threads and wheels tend to be very close to the ground, allowing for some very low-lying builds that pose a challenge for some weapon types to hit.
But that is definitely not all there is to it. There are, also, a number of weapon types - more than the movement types to be sure - and each has a relatively unique approach. Or, if not downright unique, then at least easily differentiable.
To fire a weapon, the Player needs to have energy. Energy is a resource that generates automatically in pretty high quantities as long as the Player’s robot is alive, and energy is spent based on the type of weapon that is being fired as well as the quantity of weapons that are being fired. As such, some weapons take up small amounts of energy per shot, and can thus be fired almost indefinitely, while others eat up massive chunks, creating huge downtimes but doing insane damage per shot.
Coming off of that, there are lasers - low damage, low energy consumption weapons that have an incredibly high rate of fire. Then, there are plasma cannons - firing projectiles that arch slightly and explode, doing medium damage in an area around the point of impact. They can deal massive amounts of damage very fast, on account of being capable of firing very rapidly, but they eat into energy like a hungry bear after hibernation. Lastly, out of the three basic types (did I mention that?) is the Rail cannon.
Unlike the other two, this one can be zoomed in properly, thanks to the Right Mouse button not simply slightly nearing the camera, but instead providing a straight up scope. This one has a low fire rate, and absolutely destroys energy reserves, but it does insane damage and can pierce… Like a sniper rifle.
Then there are more funky weapons - such as the blade, which is a melee weapon requiring that the Player rams their Robot into the other Robots they want to kill. These do brutal amounts of damage - but are melee weapons.
Then there are a number of rocket launchers - most of them coming with either a lock-on functionality or a large area of effect. Big damage, big energy costs, low fire rate. There’s a shotgun type of weapon, which is a lot more effective at close range than at long range, and also sporting a low fire-rate in exchange for big damage and big energy costs. In addition to those, there’s the proper machine-gun, which must first be spun up to start firing, unleashing an incredibly high rate-of-fire but with reasonably low damage. It can melt enemies and will barely touch energy reserves.
Lastly, but definitely not least, there’s the healing weapon. It does not do damage and, instead, restores the health of allied Robots.
That brings up the necessity to talk about the way damage is handled in this game, as was hinted at earlier on. In Robocraft, every single piece of the PC has a certain amount of Health, and it can be killed, and if killed it disappears. That also applies for weapons (which are attached to the robot) as it also applies for legs, flying implements and wheels or threads.
In addition to that, the main building block for robots - those being literally cubes - which act as the foundation upon which everything else is placed… Are just as destructible as the rest of the Robot, and there is correlative damage. If all the bricks on top of which a weapon is situated get destroyed, the weapon goes with them. The same applies for wheels, wings or legs - if the things holding the leg gets blown off, the leg flies off with it. This is such an incredible implementation of limb-based damage, and limb damage overall, that I am impressed by just how well it was done more than 6 years ago by now.
However, with that said… The game’s a bit clearly described. Naturally, it is not as simple as it might appear - that many options create incredibly interesting dynamics between different weapon + movement combinations, and then people’s creativity gets an outlet, sometimes in the shape of a huge brick that takes forever to kill, other times in the shape of weird entities that look like skateboards.
Regardless, this game features incredible complexity in the builder - the Robot builder - which is tightly bound to progression, and I feel as though that should be addressed first.
The Player starts off with an account at level 1. The Player gains levels by surpassing certain thresholds of battle experience, which is obtained by playing matches of Robocraft. Upon gaining a level, the Player is granted a Tech Point, which can be used to unlock a node in the gigantic “tech tree”. Unlocking a node in it grants the Player access to whatever part is associated with the node.
However, there are other means of progression, similarly tied to playing matches of Robocraft. One of those is the possession of Robits. Those are a currency that the Player accumulates from playing matches and can be used to Upgrade the Player’s Bays. The Bay is a Robot slot - and the Player has 3 of those by default, but can get more. Bays are obtained by just clicking the “New Robot” button and making a robot, with the limit being 100, which is going to be very hard to reach.
However, the real funky thing here are the specifications of the Bay. Every Bay has a CPU limit, with the CPU being determined by the number of components a Robot has. As a result, the more components a Robot has, the more CPU it has, and the higher the Bay’s CPU needs to be for it to be able to fit the Robot. A Bay’s CPU starts off at 750, which is already more than enough for a Robot to work and be decently competitive, and goes all the way up to 10,000.
Upgrading the Bay’s CPU costs Robits - with the Upgrade from 750 CPU to 10,000 CPU costing 285,000 Robits, though there’s also the option to Upgrade a Bay’s CPU in increments of 50, which have a very manageable cost increase.
Then there’s another type of progression - Power Upgrades for weapons. Each Weapon has a power rank associated with it, which can be increased when the Player reaches a threshold of battle experience accumulated by using said Weapon. Upon reaching the threshold, the Player will be offered to upgrade its power rank with Robits - 8000 to go from power rank 1 to power rank 2 - which will increase the amount of damage it does by a whopping 3%. There are 10 weapon power ranks, so there’s plenty of reason to play and advance.
Lastly, and truly lastly, there are the gamemodes. Naturally, there are PvP (Player versus Player) gamemodes, of which there are 4. Though there isn’t an option to just get matchmade with other players to go into a certain gamemode - there is matchmaking, but it only allows for a single map, and a single gamemode, which is available for 30 minutes and then changes to something else.
There are custom games, but then those can only be populated with in-game friends of the Player making them, meaning that although there are a number of options, they aren’t really present and the only true option is the quick play map/mode of the current half hour.
The same applies for single player modes - which allow the Player to hop on a similarly “quick play” map with a bunch of computer controlled robots, some on the Player’s Team, others on the enemy team… Though it is important to mention that there is only one game mode available for team based single player.
There is also the Tutorial and there are challenges. Challenges are some of the most fun to be had in Robocraft, aside from designing a Robot, because they truly challenge the Player while making as great a use out of the game’s mechanics as possible - namely the connectedness of the Robots, by creating weak points on Robots that get sent at the Player in droves and challenging said Player to hit the weak points so as to get rid of the enemy Robots, or to at least disarm them to make the battles easier.
The challenges all feature different game modes and restrictions, while also being based on waves. The Player has to deal with a wave of enemies, then another, then another, without dying. There are also difficulties for each challenge - going from Bronze, which gives the Player 5 lives and makes the enemies really easy to kill, as well as quite harmless, to Protonium, which makes the enemies considerably healthier and also makes them insanely dangerous for the Player, while giving the Player only 1 life - so dying once means the challenge has been failed.
Those challenges are really enjoyable and are also a good way of improving at the game, and that’s all.
Robocraft is an astoundingly pleasant game that is still in need of some refinements, but that, which is on offer, is already far better than a large number of the offerings presented by bigger companies out there, and the monetization system is very reasonable, being exclusively bound to cosmetics. 3/3
Presentation
Robocraft does something really weird and that is to launch a highlight reel of epic Robocraft gameplay moments as soon as the game is launched. There is no cinematic, there is no introduction to anything, there isn’t even a logo - it’s just Robocraft action that’s quite outdated by now.
However, there is immediately an issue - and that issue is not the way the game looks, because damn me if Robocraft does not have a very particular aesthetic with a very cohesive theme that it sticks to like dry glue! Vast 3D environments that are not too busy, but are also not too barren, in which a large number of wild inventions run amok and fight to the death, with each creation being as crazy as the previous - that’s fantastic.
Not only that, but as it turns out I’ve been a bit starved for pleasantly colored science fiction with sleek, elegant futurism involved. Robocraft offers that, while also keeping things visually manageable. Sound effects and music also stick to the theme incredibly well, with the music being so perfectly picked (or composed) that it is literally the kind of music one ought to think when they’re told: “toy-esque robots fighting”.
In regards to how it introduces a new Player to the game, it could do a bit better - the Tutorial is hidden away in the Single Player options, but aside from that it is a detailed, coherent set of instructions that does its best to lay down the basics.
Not only that, but information the Player is in need of is all well conveyed, and the User Interface looks okay, without being too intrusive. Overall, there really is not much that can be said to lessen the grade of Robocraft, as it not only does what it needs to do, it does it in a nearly perfect manner…
Well, except for the fact that some things are far louder than other things - such as the Sound Effects drowning out the music and the announcer - as well as the fact that the damage numbers are just ludicrously high without a good reason for being such, and also the fact that any challenge completion does not get recognized by the challenges, but aside from those, it’s great! 3/3
Story
There is something about warring factions that gets mentioned in the Tutorial, and something about an incredibly valuable material, but… Well, that stays in the tutorial and there is nothing else to ever be mentioned. So, unfortunately, there is no story in Robocraft - which is quite alright, but will not be netting it any points. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Unfortunately, NO, it does not. There’s something that’s missing from the game, and no matter how much I like it in practice and conceptually, I cannot abstract myself from the feeling of that absence. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. Robocraft is a fantastic, FREE multiplayer game that is perfect for any size of friend group and even for the single player. It is way more pleasant than almost any other competitive pile of dookie on the market and features opportunities for single-player entertainment, as a result of which I recommend it to absolutely everyone who’s into shooters, PvP and PvE, as well as folks who might enjoy intricate character creators.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining, very scientific achievement that I proudly display, alongside that one robot I made. Splendid stuff!