The first game I took a shot at this morning was Custom Robo for GameCube. The basic premise behind the game is to build a robot and take it into battle against one to three opponents.

There are five different aspects to customize. You have the main body of the machine which defines the basic look, strength, and speed. You then pick a primary gun, an explosive, and a smart weapon. Primary guns include single shot weapons, automatics, and weapons with a wide distribution of fire. Explosives consist of a variety of bombs and missles, and the smart weapons are actually robots that seek out your opponents and explode upon impact. Finally, you choose a set of boots that alters how you evade attacks through various jump or dash maneuvers. The plethora of parts is daunting at first, and until you test them in battle, it can be somewhat difficult to get a feel for the advantages and disadvantages of the machine you are building.

Battles take place in full 3-dimensional space on one screen and move at a frantic pace, especially during four-player matches. There are obstacles and walls in various places to use as cover. You quickly learn whether your machine can stand up to your opponents. As you take fire, you will periodically get knocked out, but it actually takes quite some time before your life bar is fully depleted.

Control takes about fifteen minutes to adjust to. Aiming is mostly automatic, but you can press Y to switch targets at any time in multi-player, and holding in the button for your explosives allows you to move a cursor to direct where they will land.

Graphically, Custom Robo is above average, but not outstanding. The most impressive aspect is in the detail on the robots themselves. On the other hand backgrounds and textures are relatively simple.

Custom Robo looks like an interesting game with a style we see very little of here in the US. Hopefully, it will make it here soon.