Robo Pit - Consummate gaming which stands the test of time.
Basic Concept:
Welcome to the future. A future where people no longer fight. Corporations build robots in order to settle grievances without bloodshed in an arena. You enter the arena ranked 100. By destroying your competition, you climb the ladder until reaching the top - Then you must prove yourself...
"In the end, there can be only one."
Gameplay:
When you start a new game, you have two pre-built robots available to you as well as the option to build one from scratch. As you can build 8 custom robots per save file, it makes sense to have some fun with the creation process.
The controls are intuitive, with the camera looking over the robot's shoulder at all times. Square operates the left arm. Circle operates the right arm. X to jump and Triangle to block. The up/down directional buttons move the robot forward and backward, whilst the left/right directional buttons turn the robot. Basic controls are these, but complexity was not required.
Graphics:
The robots are deliberately cartoon-esque and even have giant eyes to display their character. The arena levels vary greatly. One sees our robot fighting in space, with asteroids hurling themselves across the floor and another sees them in a man-made forrest, fighting to the delight of the onlooking spectators.
Sound:
At the time this game was released, the audio was high-end in terms of quality. To my mind, it still holds up superbly. It mixes catchy tunes with telephone jingles and the blending between tracks leaves you often not realising the change has occurred at all. After not playing it for months, 5 seconds of any track will bring you straight back with a sense of nostalgic glory.
Value:
Robo Pit was originally created for the Sega Saturn. It can be found for that system cheaply enough, but I highly recommend looking for it's remake on the Sony PlayStation, which routinely sells on eBay for around $4.00. I normally prefer the original versions to most things, but this game had it's graphics improved substantially and lost none of the gameplay. Well worth the money and likely to last you 5 hours per run through.
I can understand why many of you may think this might not be worth bothering with, but Robo Pit offers a constant sense of 'Pick-Up-And-Play' value that has lasted me, to-date, close to a decade.
Conclusion:
A must-purchase for anyone who considers themselves a fan of the robot-melee genre. A considered purchase for those who claim to like 'retro' games and a decent purchase for the rest of you. As my score indicates (although clearly swayed by "favourite game" bias), I cannot praise it highly enough!!
As a reward for reading this far, I offer some in-game advice:
Rare weapons to look out for in the arena are the lance, the laser and shield-4. They don't often show up later on in the game, so you should try and get them early.
Good luck if you decide to buy this game and thank you for taking the time to read my review.