It seems odd that we are just now seeing a large number of games for a cartoon series that was introduced back in 1985. I mean sure, Dragon Ball Z is old, but the U.S. release of the last episodes was still just a few years ago. Robotech has been around for over 20 years! Anyway, Robotech: Invasion is a first-person shooter which takes place during the last third of the series, during the Invid invasion. This is also the only portion of the series I was completely unfamiliar with, so I was moderately interested in playing a game about it. While I wasn’t expecting much, I was still pretty disappointed with how the game ultimately turned out.

The graphics would have been fine, a few years ago. The visual quality of Robotech: Invasion is below what I would consider par for a (near) last generation PS2 title. When you compare it to other first-person shooters just around the corner, most notably Killzone, there’s just no comparison. The graphics in Robotech: Invasion are grainy and uninspired. To make things worse the contrast is horrible and it’s way too hard to discern what’s on the screen, especially in dark areas. Robotech is a cartoon; I see nothing in this game that reminds me of the artistic style of the show at all. Now this is all based on the PS2 version of the game. For all I know the X-box one might, and probably does, look at least a little better.

Likewise, I would expect a game based on a cartoon to make gratuitous use of the pre-existing sound effects and music, unless of course they come up with something better. The folks responsible for the sound in this game clearly didn’t. So I don’t understand why they didn’t make more use of content from the show. Sure, they have the show’s signature trumpet ensemble at the beginning, and I assume the music I hear during many of the Invid fights is some version from the show. I assume this for two reasons: one it’s one of the only good pieces of music in the game, and two it just sounds like something from the cartoon. Now, to be fair, I’ve never actually SEEN any of the episodes of the Invid saga, but I’m pretty familiar with the first two sagas, and I just don’t hear it.

If the graphics and sound are disappointing, the gameplay is downright BORING. To begin with, it’s all standard FPS fare. The only exception to this is that you are strapped into this cyclone armor that can transform into a motorcycle for you. Unfortunately, since the control is terrible, the weapons never hit anything, and with the fact that you have no shield while on the thing, I never found the motorcycle very enthralling for anything other than getting somewhere fast. Getting somewhere fast is a very important point because a large portion of the game involves walking over huge, almost empty, landscapes. The movement speed is also way too slow. A run button might have been nice. Sure, you have the cycle so why would you need a run button? Well aside from the motorcycle being very little fun, it also can’t be used indoors.

Then there is the FPS staple to talk about, shooting things till they’re dead. This can be deconstructed into two categories, fighting Invid and fighting non-Invid. While fighting non-Invid you have to keep two things in mind: number one, you can’t lock-on to non-Invid targets, number two, if you get anywhere near them you’re going to die, and die quickly. For some reason, non-Invid are way more accurate with their weapons than many of the normal Invid grunts. Be prepared to play sniper with pistols and machine guns a lot in this game. If you try to get into a fire fight near two or more guys, be prepared to kiss a large chunk of your health good bye.

The second situation is when you are fighting Invid. This is a little more fun. The Invid fight in huge mechs. Additionally, you can lock-on to Invid targets. While human targets could be standing right next to you near a building and blend right in because of the poor visual contrast, Invid are pretty easy to see. Their “weak point” is an eye located at the center of each mech. For lower class Invid this isn’t as important, and locking on and plugging away does just fine. For some of the harder guys locking on isn’t always the best idea, and you are frequently going to do better by manual targeting on the eye and firing. Invid fights are a lot more fun, and the only fun to be found in the game. It isn’t enough to make the multi-player aspect of the game very interesting either and isn’t enough to save the game from mediocrity.

Well, I guess the story is kind of interesting as well. The first two Robotech sagas centered on wars against a race of alien giants known as the Zentraedi. It seems a ship we “accidentally” (no, seriously) stole from them contained something they stole from the Invid, an item known as the Invid flower of life. It seems the Invid wanted this back and after the 2nd war with the Zentraedi, they showed up and beat the war weary earth troops easily. So the basic idea is you’re a freedom fighter fighting alien occupiers. There’s an entertaining twist to this, however, and anyone familiar with the Invid saga probably can already guess what that is. Actually, just play the game for twenty minutes and you’ll know what it is since they kind of give it away a little too soon.

The real difficulty of this game doesn’t rest in the shooting, or the killing, or the dying. The real difficulty lies in battling the boredom that comes with retracing your steps over and over. Just going from point A to point B is frequently an exercise in tedium. Aside from that, I’ll also say there needs to be a better indicator of when you’re getting hurt. If you’re not paying attention, three guys could be unloading all kinds of hell into you and you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking at your health bar. I can’t tell you how many times I’d be looking for an enemy on my radar only to realize he already saw me and was taking potshots.

As if the gameplay wasn’t irritating enough, there are some issues with the menus that cause one further headaches. Firstly, whenever you go into an options menu, whether or not you change anything, you will be told you changed something and asked if you want to save the new profile. Also, whenever you go to save the game, even if you don’t do anything, it still accesses the memory card for some reason. It sits there doing that longer than it takes to actually save something. What on earth is it doing? Imbibing electronic alien spawn into your memory card? Oh well, at least we get that enthralling intro where we can’t die and have to destroy 20+ mechs that take forever to destroy, fun fun!

Unless you are one serious hardcore Robotech fan, you aren’t going to like this game. In fact, even if you are a hardcore Robotech fan you might not like the game. I’m not a hardcore fan, but I got two to try the game. Yeah, they hated it too. A rental, maybe, but not one you’re going to be buying.