It’s one part shooter, one part platformer…two parts Batteries Not Included.
That was an awesome movie.
It’s Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, for the Nintendo GameCube.
So this is a pretty interesting game.
It was released back in 2003, and it came to all the major platforms.
The PlayStation 2, the original Xbox and of course…the GameCube.
And again, it’s like…take WALL-E, and instead of being a movie about pollution,
just make it a video game about war.
That’s Metal Arms.
It’s actually kind of adorable.
Which is weird, because the title doesn’t sound that way.
Metal Arms sounds a lot more menacing than Glitch in the System actually is.
It’s a shooter, but with, like…character.
So what I mean by that?
Well, you play as this adorable little robot named Glitch.
And Glitch lives on this alien world.
Populated…by adorable little robots.
And what makes Metal Arms so interesting is that contrast between character and content.
You have all these cutesy robots, trying to kill each other.
So you have all-out gunfights…between big-eyed droids.
You blow them to pieces…and sometimes, the legs still stumble around without a body.
It’s, like…it’s the most adorable annihilation you’ve ever seen.
And you know, a lot of the game’s character comes from its voice talent.
There are some incredibly talented people lending their voices to Metal Arms.
How about Rob Paulsen, from none other than Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Nickelodeon’s TMNT,
the original TMNT…dude’s a two-time Turtle.
A boss.
Not to mention Dan Castellaneta, who you might know as Homer freaking Simpson.
And those voices really help bring these characters to life.
So I like the characters, and I love the concept…I just wish the environments were as memorable
as the rest of the game.
I mean, on the one hand, I like the notion of driving home the contrast, right?
Having these cute characters in these dark, shadowy, mechanical worlds.
That’s cool, in theory…but at times, it feels a little too dark, and a little too
shadowy.
It’d be nice if the game’s world were as colorful as its personality.
Of course, this is a shooter.
And so as you’d expect, there’s shooting.
Actually, Metal Arms reminds me of a game like Ratchet and Clank.
It’s really just an old-school 3D platformer, in terms of its level design.
But with the gameplay of a third-person shooter.
There are bullets flying all over the place in this game.
You go from one gunfight to another.
And along the way?
It’s like a platformer, from the Nintendo 64.
And there’s actually a lot of depth to the game’s shooting mechanics.
Glitch can use some seriously powerful weaponry, and he finds a ton of it.
All kinds of laser beams and gatling guns and rocket launchers—it’s crazy, how much
devastation this little guy can cause.
And as you move through the game’s 40 levels, there’s always something to devastate.
And usually a large group, of those somethings.
So this all sounds good, right?
Sounds great.
And it would be, but there’s a few issues.
For starters, that level design.
It’s a little too…open, I guess.
For a game so focused on action, the levels could be a little more straightforward.
And actually, I think some of that might be on the graphics.
The environments aren’t only dark, but they can be really blurry, too.
So it can be hard to tell doors from walls, places to go from…walls.
Now, on the other hand…the character models look amazing.
The amount of detail here is insane.
Especially for such an early GameCube title.
They clearly put a lot of effort into those robots, and they look fantastic.
Of course, the drawback to that is…you use up the system’s power, so the environments
take a hit.
As does the framerate, which is one of the game’s biggest problems, actually.
During the gunfights, it takes a serious dip.
I don’t think Metal Arms got much attention when it was released.
Which, sadly, is perhaps expected.
You have this super-serious genre like a shooter mixed with this kind of theme, you risk being
too cute for shooter fans and too complex for younger gamers.
I think that’s where Metal Arms sits.
But attention be damned, that’s a sweet spot for me.
It’s like Battalion Wars with robots.
And that’s awesome.
Great theme, great audio, great gameplay…and on the negative side, maybe it could control
a bit tighter.
And the levels could be a bit more clear.
But on the whole, this is a good GameCube game, and if you’re like me, it’s one
you might’ve overlooked back then.
So in a way…with this, you can play a “new” GameCube game in 2014.
Nothing cooler than that.
Except maybe WALL-E with a bazooka.
It’s Metal Arms: Glitch in the System.