Score
Gameplay:	7
Graphics:	8
Sound:	7
FunFactor:	8
PlasmaFactor:	7
Overall:	7.4

Scrapland Review
December 2, 2004 by Brian Callam

by Brian - December 2, 2004

When I first heard about Scrapland, I was very excited about playing it because it seemed to be similar to Beyond Good & Evil, which, as you may recall if you read my review, is one of my all time favorite games. After finally getting the chance to play it, it turns out that its not really much like BG&E at all, and definitely isn�t as good as it either. However, its definitely a decent game, and anyone who likes Action Adventure titles should definitely give this one a try.

Welcome to Chimera

In Scrapland you play the role of a robot named D-Tritus who somehow put himself together in a junkyard and in an effort to meet other beings, travels to the world of Chimera which is completely inhabited by human fearing robots. In fact, when you first enter the city, D-Tritus is sent to a decontamination chamber for fear of him having human germs. The people of Chimera dislike all organic living beings because Chimera, or Scrapland as they sometimes call it, was once inhabited by humans, but they left the planet after it became uninhabitable to them. You will eventually find out that Scrapland is actually Earth.

Since everyone in Scrapland is required to have a job, the first thing you must do is get one. Unfortunately, the only jobs left are the ones nobody wants, and so D-Tritus is stuck being a reporter for a local news channel in Chimera. News on Chimera isn�t like news you would see in today�s world though. Since robots can never die due to the presence of the Great DataBase (GDB), where every robot�s matrix is stored so that if something happens to them they can be reborn as if nothing happened, the Chimerian citizens are only interested in things they can bet on like space cruiser deathmatches and races. However, on your very first assignment, you uncover a murder mystery that will shake the whole city of Chimera to its foundations. Someone is killing people in Chimera, and stealing their matrices from the GDB so that they can never be reborn.

You will also learn early on how to hack into the GDB. This allows you to impersonate other characters in the game, each with their own special abilities that you will use in various situations. For example, if you are in need of money for the junkyard (where you buy and build new ships), impersonate a banker and steel money from people (Yeah, bankers primary job in Scrapland is stealing. They will even steal from you if you aren�t looking).

The actual gameplay is a lot like the Grand Theft Auto series... with robots, but it gets repetitive. Basically, to uncover clues to the mystery and advance the plot you will have to do missions for certain people close to the crime like the police chief and the mayor. These missions include things like racing against a group of other robots through Chimera, killing rivals until they run out of lives, or impersonating someone else to infiltrate a specific area. Unfortunately, there isn�t really a wide variety of missions, so after the first couple of hours of the game you will find yourself doing the same thing you did half an hour ago for a different person. It can get somewhat frustrating and boring after a while.

You will also be spending quite a bit of time flying through the streets of Chimera in your ship, which you can build and upgrade at the scrapyard. You can even steal ships, another great way to impersonate others. There are a variety of upgrades you can get, from hulls, to ship designs, to weapons, and engines. A lot of these can be gained by doing side missions for the Crazy Gambler. He is, well, a crazy guy that you will meet early in the game who gives you �crazy bets� to do while you are out flying, and every once in a while you will get a �super crazy bet� that will get you a nice upgrade. A lot of these bets involve dogfighting other people in the streets. Combat is actually one of the funner parts of the game, and there is even a multiplayer deathmatch mode for people who want to kill other actual players. Unfortunately, every time I looked for a game there wasn�t a single server, so I was unable to actually try out the multiplayer.

To cut to the chase, the story is good, combat is good, but the missions are way too repetitive and could use some work.

More Repetition

Although Scrapland�s world isn�t that big, its definitely got some interesting and gorgeous looking terrain. The streets of Chimera are especially vivid and are remenicient of The Fifth Element or Blade Runner. The graphics certainly don�t disappoint in this game. Animation is well done, the robots actually move like robots, and the world certainly has a lot of personality that you don�t find in many games.

Its not perfect though. The thing that really bugged me about Scrapland is that there isn�t much of a variety in types of robots. Each area has the same robots as the last, and it just seems to detract from the feeling that this is a real world.

 

 

Do the Robot!

The soundtrack in Scrapland is full of a variety of techno beats that fit the game perfectly. After all, what kind of music goes better with robots? Its not exactly the best soundtrack ever, but its definitely high quality. The sound effects are also very realistic. Boosting in your ship really sounds like the engine is working double time as I zoom past traffic.

Voice acting and dialogue in general could have used some more work though. There also isn�t a variety of interactions either. Since there is such a low variety of characters, they all say the same things every time you talk to them, so after the first five minutes of play, you will likely never have to talk to another NPC the entire game unless they are giving you a mission, because they will just say the same thing every time.

 

Needs More Content

Really, the only thing that keeps Scrapland from being a great game is the lack of content. Seeing the same characters everywhere, hearing the same old spiels every time you talk to them, and the repetitive missions all could have been easily remedied if they just spent a little more time working on it. That said, Scrapland is definitely not a bad game, it just needs a little work. If you are even slightly interested in playing this game, I suggest giving it a try. There�s even a demo for it if you aren�t willing to put your money on the line without trying it first.