Alright, that's a bold statement to make, I agree. Maybe it's not the absolute best handheld game out there, but it's definitely high up there on the 'great games' scale, and funnily enough it's not widely recognised by people as such.
What is this game, you ask? One of the Mario games? Nope. Sonic? Nope. Metal Gear Solid on the PSP? Nope.
Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction on the Gameboy Advance.
I'm guessing that's either a look of confusion or disgust on your face right now, in which case - shame on you! RWED on the GBA (acronyms LOL) is quite frankly one of the best games of it's era, and even today too! Whilst it's definitely not the best game it could have been, RWED definitely encompasses everything a Robot Wars game should be. On top of that, despite a very small number of modes the game still manages to be entertaining to this day, 10 years later or something - that's an achievement in itself.
Of course, being on GBA it does have its graphical limitations. And by graphical limitations, I mean it's about as soothing on the eyes as shards of glass. Don't get me wrong, it's not the worst out there but it's certainly not the best and in any case the robots at least look recognisable. It's not beautiful, but pretty much full 3D with a damn good physics engine on the Gameboy Advance is incredible for the time. Incredible, I say!
Most of my sheer delight playing this game may come from the nostalgia of Robot Wars (I still watch it daily!) but I have to say it's even great fun for people who know nothing about Robot Wars, sure you won't get the whole 'You unlocked Chaos 2' thing (2 time Grand Champion) but it'll still be a blast to play through nevertheless. You'll blast through said game in an afternoon if you're half decent at it, but the replayability is what really draws me back to this game. The fact that you'll never meet a made-up robot (as you would in the console games) in any of the modes minus multiplayer if you still have a link cable, or indeed build your own and enter it in the main contests, means that everything just works. It feels like the Robot Wars game that Robot Wars should always have had.
Especially compared to the console ports, the game is incredible - I can't sing it's praises enough! If you go back and play the old console/PC games now, you'll know that they're buggy, don't work right, look silly... granted, they're fun but a true representation of the show they aren't. The GBA counterpart isn't either to some extent, with no visible damage on robots unless you count a certain polygon glitch and no mid-round fixing of the machines. As a concept and a game it works fantastically well, but just imagine if someone were to develop a combat robotics game using a proper physics engine for the PC...
Now THAT would definitely be worth throwing some money at!
-Flag Captured
