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> Results: Metal Arms: Glitch In The System
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*bleep*ing Great!Looking for a way to let your kids play Halo without letting them play Halo? Pick up Metal Arms, available on all three consoles. While Metal Arms isn't a first person shooter like Bungie's seminal action game, it has all the same sensibilities as that hit title and it comes to us from a brand new developer with the appropriate name, Swingin' Ape Studios. That name epitomizes the kind of loopy fun you have while blasting your way through over forty levels of mechanized mayhem. Right from the start it's easy to see that Metal Arms has a lot of personality. One of the first bots you meet uses bad language like a switchblade but it's comically bleeped out. This sets the stage for a training mission where both the droids with you are obvious cannon fodder by the name of Screwed and Hosed. Control is superb in Metal Arms and functions just like a first person shooter despite the over the shoulder third person perspective. The developers smartly made Glitch short enough that you can see over him and they put the camera in a respectable position that never gets obscured throughout play.  Vision is crucial because you'll be in a lot of frenetic gunfights that require deft handling of the gamepad. The game kindly pauses the action when you swap weapons, both primary and secondary. Many levels in Metal Arms require the player to think strategically about how best to approach a set piece fight. There are checkpoints scattered through the levels and thankfully don't create a ton of repetitious play if you die. You'll do a lot of dying too. This can be a hard game and often requires you to completely rethink your attack patterns based on resources available in the level. The desingers have done a great job of creating levels that have a flow to them. The levels also seem to be designed around both gameplay and a reasonably functional aesthetic which is impressive in a game that's equally serious and over the top all at the same time. The over the top quality comes from the weapons and the enemies. With each new weapon or upgrade, your ability to send shards of metal flying in all directions and come raining down like confetti is increased along with your satisfaction. Everything in this game blows up real good. It's definitely a crowd pleaser. The developers specifically wanted the ability to have lots of debris and still retain a below M-rating so what better to destroy than a whole lot of robots? It works so well in practice. Thankfully, they thought enough of their audience to give the robots a soul which makes the carnage all the more enjoyable. Sometimes it seems like all a good game needs to make it great is a lot of yelling and screaming during the shooting and this game delivers that too. It seems like nothing could be wrong with it? Unfortunately, the biggest problem is slowdown. It's not a game killer, but when the game runs at sixty frames per second most of the time, those moments when the speed drops are annoying at best and a big downer at worst. You won't get killed by slowdown, but you will come to despise it after awhile in Metal Arms. It's the worst on PS2 and the best on Xbox so use that to make your purchase choice accordingly. The only other complaint is there are a few times you'll find yourself hurting for ammo and the save system isn't built to let you go back and conserve. Each level has what you need but if you're someone that's generous with the blaster, expect to be using the mining laser a lot. The slowdown is at its worst in multiplayer, but it's so much fun you just won't care. One map in particular is potentially one of the best ever created for this type of game with fixed gun emplacements at either end, tanks, vehicles and a couple Atlases you can hijack. That's one of the game's strongest suits is your ability to take over other bots and use them as pawns. Atlas-sized bots are big trouble in a fight until you get the control tether. With them under your command, the game takes a nice twist. Whole levels are built around you controlling other bots through the tether or even playing as other characters, each with their own special abilities. It keeps the gameplay feeling new and refreshing all the way through even though most of it still revolves around making something go boom. With four players in multiplayer along with all the vehicles and bot control you get in single player, this game rivals the mighty Halo in sheer shooting fun. If only it would've had some kind of system link to allow for a house full of destruction on multiple consoles. Metal Arms is a great game. It's a little rough around the edges sometimes but with so much personality, those rough edges smooth out. The strategic combat and some superb level design turn this into one of the best pure shooting games to grace our screens. It seems like there's so much more for the folks at Swingin' Ape Studios to build on that a sequel could be just the break out hit this game had the potential to be. Kid Factor: Ok, this one's kind of hard. There is a lot of violence in Metal Arms, but it's all committed against robots. The guns are plentiful and the explosions are large. Robots are torn up left and right throughout gameplay. They also scream a lot and even beg you not to blast them. It's all pretty comedic though so in the end, the T rating is right on. Don't forget about Krunk, the Mr. Fixit bot who cusses up a storm. He might be objectionable. Really though, this is Halo for kids. It just depends on your outlook on violence in general how you'll handle this one with smaller children. It sure is fun to blow stuff up and this is about as benign as it gets while still retaining a metric ton of stuff exploding. Reviewer Recommended Ages: 8+ Genre: Shooter ESRB Rating: T-Teen Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games Developer: Swingin' Ape Studios 
Ok, this one's kind of hard. There is a lot of violence in Metal Arms, but it's all committed against robots. The guns are plentiful and the explosions are large. Robots are torn up left and right throughout gameplay. They also scream a lot and even beg you not to blast them. It's all pretty comedic though so in the end, the T rating is right on. Don't forget about Krunk, the Mr. Fixit bot who cusses up a storm. He might be objectionable. Really though, this is Halo for kids. It just depends on your outlook on violence in general how you'll handle this one with smaller children. It sure is fun to blow stuff up and this is about as benign as it gets while still retaining a metric ton of stuff exploding.
Kid Factor by Dave Long
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