Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Robot Alchemic Drive

Written by Chris Reiter on October 21, 2002

First Impressions: Cowabunga way radical and way bodacious dudes! Oops, sorry...wrong decade!

What could be better than an afternoon in some nice weather? Besides a number of things, life sized robot warfare set in real life situations. That's what! And I'm not talking about just a mere ploy to lure you in to a game where you might see Robocop battling laser ready androids down an alleyway. I'm talking about something that's bigger, badder, and much more radder...in fact, it's so rad the game is given that name: R.A.D., or Robot Alchemic Drive. Taken from an old PlayStation game that has since disappeared from the radar blip, R.A.D. is Enix's next generation answer to R.C.D., or Remote Control Dandy. And in a couple weeks, you too can find out why.

It's the future, and in it it's a common place to watch the wreckage of your city being demolished by enormous creatures and robots, called Meganites, to play the part of both the offense and defense. One such protagonist, a seventeen year old teenager named Tsukioka is not only the chairman of the Civilization Preservation Foundation, an organization that is built is to protect the fair city of Senjo, but also the leading man in taking a devastating situation such as wide scale city invasion under wraps. Today is that day. Giant monsters by the name of Volgara have just appeared on the scene, and are trashing the city's every inch. What are you going to about this mess? There is only one thing that can be done. Dust off that remote controller of yours and step up to the face of action -- because with the power to manipulate a 120-foot tall robot, there's a whole lot of city to be saved!

R.A.D. isn't your normal mech game, obviously. In a different perspective than the standard get-into-the-cockpit-and-take-control-of--the-machine view, you'll be able to take control over the robot that takes care of you from afar. Think of a remote control car, only bigger than a building like the Empire State Building. Now image that you can run over the entire city of New York simply by moving the up and down switch or basically anywhere you can think up. This is much in the same way as it is with a car, except you're using a robot -- or a Meganite -- and you're not destroying things on purpose...well, not as much as the enemy will be anyway.

You'll be able to take on an assortment of mission types, leading to such escapades as defending and destroying whatever is in your way. One thing though is that not only are you obligated to protect the city's people, but mostly yourself. It's a two way street the whole time. You're not THE robot, but you can tell it to do what you want it to do. Because of that, the game has you switching between two different camera views the entire time. The first view is set from Tsukioka's angle on the ground. Whereas the second point is seen through the robot's eye, only in a weird sort of way you'll have to move it around from a spot that may or may not be close. Even though Tsukioka is based on the ground, he still has the ability to get closer to the combat by using a futuristic hover board which allows the player to float in mid air, or if you're daring enough, land on your Meganite's shoulder for a front row seat to the action at hand.

Just like any other robot game before it, R.A.D. will feature its own set of fighting techniques to keep the game different enough. As the standard, it's that you'll get to use weaponry from lasers, to missile fire, and for something a little different, boomerangs to throw with. Other than just weapons, R.A.D. is being given the full body treatment with its own hand-to-hand combat system where you can fight like real colossal monsters do. From punches, to hands that spring out from your wrist sockets, the fighting system should turn out to be nothing less than spectacular, if not entertaining in any way.

So far, Robot Alchemic Drive's visuals aren't turning out to be in their best of efforts, but there's still a lot more to the game that should make up for what it isn't at the moment. As said earlier, you're set in a city where invaders are destroying its every bit. That's what the graphics focus on, and from them, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of masses of people being crushed by your fancy footwork, chunks of buildings laying idly about after inflicted damage, and literally, pathways straight through an entire buildings insides and out made with a little effort of when push comes to shove. It's just that at this point in time everything is on the low setting for bland production with rough city models amongst everything else. But, at least Enix still has a little time to tweak the visuals up to par. Plus fans of Toshihiro Kawamoto and his work on the popular anime series, Cowboy Bebop, should be pleased to know that it's the same person who is giving his all to make the robot designs for R.A.D. to come to life.