If playing games this past year has taught me anything it is this: toy-sized robots are definitely going to kill me. Custom Robo illustrates this point not only by having vicious street gangs, mercenary groups, and the authorities duke it out with 6 inch tall robots -- it has the tiny robot of doom. A robot so fierce and small it almost wiped out humanity and drove those few remaining to live in domes and never speak his name again. Despite this completely ridiculous premise and the other aches and pains that accompany Custom Robo's story mode there is a great fighting game lurking here, with a large amount of customization and surprisingly deep tactics.
Naturally a game that features tiny robot fighting action needs a hero worthy of the fight. You play a 16 year old boy who joins a mercenary band with one of the weakest names ever, Steel Hearts, in order to fulfill his might-not-be-dead father's could-be-final wish -- that he become a commander. Eventually you find out that being a commander means being able to control a tiny robot. Yes, dad had big dreams for his son, and after your first run-in with some ne'er-do-wells you achieve this dream, getting your own robot to play with. By accident, of course.
Story mode tends to drone on and on between each battle. A lot of it is attempting to be funny and falling flat, not just by the quality of humor but the frequency of the attempts. One thing that is pretty funny for about the first minute is the sound when characters are talking. With no room for voice acting but an apparent desire to have some sort of sound, all dialog is accompanied by a long string of Morse code-like bleeps and bloops, with different pitches for different characters. It's hysterical at first but soon you'll be frantically pressing A every time you see a portrait to make the text come up immediately and save your poor ears. The writing is nothing special, and the plot is completely predictable, so it's a good thing a lot of thought was put into the gameplay.
Battles in Custom Robo take place in holosseums which are generated by one of the commanders involved in the battle. You are not capable of generating a holosseum so every battle you play on someone else's map. The vast majority of these maps are square arenas with a couple of walls all done in black with Tron-like neon colored lines, though some are a bit more interesting.
The best part of Custom Robo, and the only reason to play through single player, is the level of customization you get with your miniaturized death machine. Each robot has a body, legs, gun, pod, and bomb. You collect more of these parts as you win battles in single player, and can swap them out between battles. With anywhere from 30 to 50 types of upgrades for each slot, you are looking at a lot of customization. Further more, each part builds off the next, so your gun may function one way with one body, and another way with a different one. Building your robot in a lean, mean machine that fits your chosen style can be a real blast and is worth sitting through the horrid dialog.
he key to winning battles is using the cover granted to you by the holosseum while blasting your opponent into the open with well-placed bombs and pods, then opening fire on him with your gun. Add in jumping and various dash attacks and you have a fighting game that can be as brute force or as finessed as you please. Custom Robo also offers some nice multiplayer modes, including tag team, 2 vs. 2, and handicap matches where two players team up against one. If you have a friend or three who keep up with you as you play the game this can make for some very entertaining multiplayer mayhem.
The presentation is lacking and the concept is pretty silly, but the base mechanics hold up to repeated play. Custom Robo is an excellent fighter for the Gamecube and a must-have for fans of fighting games that have a lot of customization. Plus, you'll need the training for when the toy-sized robots invade.
