➤ War Robots, the review 🎮

La War Robots review allows us to verify the characteristics of the remaster made by Pixonic for their own competitive mech-based shooter, actually available for a few years already on App Store e Google Play Store.

A highly successful title, which with this technical renewal operation seems to have been able to relaunch itself even in the rankings of the productions freemium, and that over time it has received numerous updates aimed at optimizing its basic mechanics, which are still very simple now.

Gameplay

On the front of the gameplay, War Robots actually offers a tremendously immediate experience but with its own strategic depth, dictated by the differences between the robots that we can use (divided into four classes) to launch into three-against-three matches of a classic or territorial type. Terribly slow, these vehicles cannot escape the crossfire of opponents, unless they find cover, take advantage of dips or resort to extra maneuvers such as jumping, but only available in the lighter models.

The first matches therefore turn out to be a real walk of health, putting us in front of opponents even less experienced than us or more likely to muzzle which have the only function of not making the initial impact with the game too rough. Once you have unlocked at least three mechs and made the necessary upgrades, however, the situation changes and the difficulty clearly increases.

Controls

I touch controls of War Robots are almost perfect: a virtual analog stick on the left side of the screen allows you to move the robot, while touching the right side of the display you can freely rotate the view. Then there are the attack maneuvers, delegated to some icons placed at the bottom right of the interface: a generic button activates all the weapons, but if you want you can use only one and save the ammunition of the others, which are infinite but require times of long enough loading.

Being without bullets or missiles, together with the slowness of movement, makes us completely defenseless in the face of any counterattacks. The lack of real evasive possibilities, however, soon reveals the strong incidence of elements pay to win: in a head-to-head battle, whoever owns the most powerful vehicle wins, and it is clear that by paying you can get more in less time.

Freemium model

Which leads us to discuss the freemium model adopted by Pixonic for War Robot, which at first appears fairly permissive and seems to give virtual and real credits generously, but at a certain point, especially when it is necessary to provide for the growth of more mechs at the same time, it changes quite evidently.

At that point the rewards they get tight and winning the matches becomes complicated, while at the same time the pop-ups that invite us to buy this or that package become more insistent. Of course, it is always possible to watch short advertising trailers to double the prizes at the end of each game, but continuing to play for free while also remaining competitive appears unlikely in the long run.

Technical realization

In terms of technical realization, the remaster has certainly improved some aspects of War Robot, but the game still feels like a work in progress. The a 60 fps it's not yet available, and likewise the scenarios make use of some rather flashy low-definition textures.

The polygonal models of the mechs, on the other hand, are really excellent: from the point of view of design they do not invent anything new, clearly inspired by classics such as Mech Warrior and everything that revolves around this vein, but they are detailed and well animated. The sound sector, on the other hand, is decidedly subdued: robots do not emit sounds when walking, which is absurd, and the effects in general could have been better.

Comment

Tested version iPad Digital Delivery App Store, Google Play Price Free Resources4Gaming.com

7.0

Readers

Your vote

War Robots still boasts a certain charm, despite the fact that it has been a long time since its debut on iOS and Android devices, and the remaster operation has allowed the game to relaunch enough to return to the spotlight, attracting the many users who they had abandoned due to a gameplay inevitably devoted to "pay to win" mechanisms. Unfortunately this aspect does not seem to have changed much, so the experience remains valid and fun for an impromptu use, but in the long run it highlights the usual limits.