Developer: Full Fat Productions
Publisher: Destination Software
Release Date: 10-2-06
Well, here we have it folks, the worst game ever released on a major console. I know I’ve said that before, but what could be worse than this? The game that previously vied for the title of worst game not on Hyperscan was The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. To compare it to Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots think of it this way. Take the most boring thirty seconds of the game and put it on a loop. Play this loop for thirty minutes. It now plays like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Rocky and Bullwinkle is bad, but at least the levels are different. Bullwinkle doesn’t climb up a set of stairs only to find the same set of stairs waiting for him in the next screen. Playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots is like being punished by a Greek God. I brought the mortals fire and now I am doomed to fight the same battle in the exact same way for all eternity. Or at least for a half hour or so.
Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots is, of course, based on the classic boxing toy that debuted in 1964 and can still be found in stores today. You’d think Mattel would be happy being able to sell a sixty-year-old toy that lost all of its cultural relevance in the Watergate era, but for them it wasn’t enough. No, they had to branch out. They just had to have that Game Boy Advance game. Hey, every other half-forgotten toy and cartoon had a GBA game. It is a 2D fighter which already puts it slightly behind the 3D toy. Sure, they try to expand things, but they fail in every way. The characters aren’t connected to poles like in the original game which would seem to allow free movement, but there’s not much moving in this game. That would be asking too much. They also expand the roster by not just having red and blue, but several other colored robots as well. It sounds like it might work out, but I have never played a fighting game where the character made less of a difference. They all play exactly the same with the only real difference being their defeat animation, and if you are playing a one player game it won’t matter because you’ll never lose anyway.
It’s not only that I never lost. It was never even close. Without even moving out of the way of a punch I never lost more than a fifth of my health. Now I have played more than my share of impossible to lose games in my time. I’ve played educational games for children. I’ve played ten-minute visual novels. I’ve played toy simulators. However, I have never felt less challenged than I did playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Even worse is that the game wants to be challenging. It just utterly fails. I know it’s cliche, but did someone play test this game? Did they not notice that it’s completely broken? Or did nobody care?
The main problem is that every opponent fights the exact same way. They do a few quick punches and then start doing nothing but charge attacks. If you do any move that’s faster than a charge attack you will hit them every single time. They will rarely do anything else but stand there charging. I played by holding forward while punching which did a medium punch. Each round I had to punch the opponent exactly five times. Every single fight versus every single opponent it was the exact same thing. Take a couple of initial punches and then punch them five times. No fight except maybe the first couple lasted longer than ten seconds. There were a lot of fights too. I wasn’t counting but I think every playthrough was six fights and then you would unlock another robot. The game wasn’t actually over until all the robots were unlocked. I’d say it was about thirty or forty fights in all. The fights never got more difficult though, and I kept fighting the same robots over and over. I’m not sure how they decided which robots were in which fights but it feels very random. New fighters are mixed with old fighters, and nothing makes sense. Of course, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably not surprised.
But wait, that’s not all. It also fails with the overall presentation. It’s one of the ugliest GBA games I have played. The only things that change from fight to fight are the backgrounds, and they are far from evocative. I never felt like I was playing in a different level, just the same one with the subtlest of changes. They could’ve at least changed the color of the ring. It could’ve broken the monotony a little. Even things that start out mildly amusing get old fast. I liked the dumb quips by the robots and the different ways they lose their heads. However, these things never change, so I got tired of them very fast. It’s what happens when you fight the same few robots over and over again. It is pure tedium.
Oh, and I almost forgot about the most annoying part. When the enemy’s health bar gets down to zero the fight’s not over. Instead of mercifully ending the match you have to instead alternate L and R as fast as you can until it fills up your energy bar so you can deliver the death blow. Since fights only last ten seconds you’re going to be tapping L and R constantly. And this is on Game Boy Advance. It’s not the steadiest of platforms. So, if you want a shaky game that gives you carpal tunnel syndrome than I have the game for you.
So yeah, this one’s bad. I almost want to make up a new color for this game and Ben 10 because they really are in a level all their own. After playing this Bad Street Brawler feels like a romp. Wayne’s World feels like Mega Man 2 in the presence of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. My only hope is that I will never rank a game lower than this one, and when I have 1000 games ranked it will still be 999. There can’t be any worse professionally released games out there. Don’t make me dust off my Jaguar to prove it. This is the non-Hyperscan bottom of the barrel. If you decide to play it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Game Boy Advance Quality Percentage: 0/2 or 0%
Images are from mobygames.com
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