Gameplay this fresh doesn't come around often enough these days!
You play as Blitz, a one-wheeled robotic custodian aboard a space station that houses a superweapon by the name of 'Space Cannon.' You share residency of this space station with a robot inventor by the name of Karl. When the Space Cannon comes under attack from evil robotic beings known as the NOED, (Yes, I spelled it right... ;) ) Karl, who is permanently suspended from the ceiling, finds that he's unable to repair all the main subsystems of the Space Cannon by himself in order to blast the MegaNOED out of the sky and save all of creation. That's where you come in.
You're sent to 6 different operating systems within the space station that are key components to fueling, cooling, and otherwise operating the Space Cannon. These systems offer vastly different challenges for Blitz to overcome. The tasks you have to complete range from maintaining a fuel supply to the cannon by directing barrels to the cannon via conveyor belts, to powering up an inverse-tesla coil through picking up, and manually inserting batteries, to charge it, to sending coolant to the device to keep it from overheating by navigating pipes, cogs, and fans. However, it's how you go about doing these tasks that makes this game so unique.
Blitz is noticably different that your average platforming hero...he has no legs. Instead, Blitz rolls about the Space Cannon on a single solitary wheel. This gives the controls a unique feel without being overly abstract. Blitz, being a custodian, also starts off with no guns or explosives at his disposal. Indeed, for the first portion of the game, your offensive capabilities are limited to a circular spinning attack, and smashing objects into the ground after picking them up with your arms. However, to aid him in beginning his task of powering up the Cannon, and subsequently, becoming the universe's savior, Karl endows him with an EMP beam to disable his robotic foes.
As you progress through the game, you will pick up green metallic cards, amusingly referred to as 'Upgradium.' This Upgradium is indeed used to buy new enhancements for Blitz, such as a plasma cannon for more suitably defending himself, a double-jump for enhanced maneuverability, a mid-air flip that slows the game down when performed to give the game a bit of Matrixy flair when used, and a 'Gravity Goo' gun that causes any object it coats to have anti-gravity properties, which isn't as gross as it sounds. There are also some armor and firepower upgrades in addition, making for a very well-rounded set of equipment. The fun doesn't stop there, though.
Around every four stages you complete, Karl will give you a shout. He's quite the adept inventor, despite his obvious lack of mobility. Early in the game, you're introduced to the Point-2-Point device. It allows you to place two nodes, called points, that will attract to one another, invariably pulling lighter objects towards heavier ones. This later upgrades to a personal tractor beam that you can use to not only pull lighter objects to you, but allows you to zoom towards better grounded objects, and even the environment itself, allowing you to do your Spiderman thing, if you dig that notion. (Who doesn't?)
One of the first things you'll notice about this game is that it's gorgeous. It should be. It's powered by the highly-lauded Unreal 3 Engine. (See: Gears of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas, among others) RoboBlitz features beautifully rendered environment aglow with large amounts of normal-mapping, bloom, dynamic shadow, all running at near-60 frames per second without skipping a beat. In fact, the game looks so beautiful, you'd forget it was made to fit under a 50MB size limit for Xbox Live Arcade. For those not in the know, that's smaller than the 360's standard memory card holds. So, if it's so small, why does it look as amazing as it does? I'll tell you...
RoboBlitz doesn't come with any textures. You know, those things the game uses to make all of the environment and characters in the game look like they're supposed to? Without them, everything would look white and grey? So, if it doesn't come with textures, why am I seeing them, you ask? It MAKES them. Yes, you heard me. The game uses the power of the Xbox 360 to make its textures on the fly. This technique is used to save on memory so that the game comes in a smaller package. I'll spare you the complicated jargon about how it works, but to put it simply, the game has the formulas it needs to make those textures as the next area loads.
Despite the fact that, every time you load a new mission, the game has to build its textures from scratch, the load times in this game are minimal. As you enter a new area, the game's frame rate stutters a bit, but this is done in such a way that it never intereferes with your gameplay, and the wait inbetween stages never exceeds 7 seconds. Mind you, 2 or 3 of those seconds take place while you're still leaving the area, so you're never left waiting long.
RoboBlitz could probably be beaten in around 4 or 5 hours if you know what you're doing and 'blitz' right through it, forgive the pun, but the gadgets and physics are so much fun to play with, you'll spend a good portion of your time fooling around with them, or trying to use them creatively to get those hidden-away Upgradiums. You could easily spend 10-15 hours messing around, and exploring every nook and cranny in this game. Possibly even longer.
Oh, I've completely forgotten something, in all my gushing about the complex engine. The boss fights against the NOED. Once you've managed to get most of a system's components online, invariably, a NOED comes to try and screw everything up. The great thing about these boss battles, though? They're just as fresh as the rest of game.
You'll hardly ever find yourself repeating the same task during a boss fight. None of this 'hit him the same way 3 times for each part of the fight' stuff from the days of old. Once you use a tactic on the NOED, they'll either try to take away your ability to employ it against them, or they'll one-up you, even going so far as to turn your own clever trick against you. All of the boss battles are solved by using the unique components that make up each system you've spent your time restoring against the NOED. You'll never feel like any of the NOED are a pushover, and likewise, the NOED never seem to difficult to defeat, either. Each victory feels like an accomplishment, because you really have to think out each step you take thoroughly.
The only real faults I can find with RoboBlitz are mostly limited to the grappling function of your arms. You use the right trigger on the controller to open your arms, and upon letting go, they close shut. This mechanic makes sense, but in practice, is sometimes confusing. I'll find myself wanting to let go of the object I'm holding only to drop it and pick it up again. Also, picking objects up is tricky in and of itself. Getting your arms around many of the objects in-game is rarely achieved on the first try, especially if they are at an odd angle, floating in the air, or small objects on the floor, and while carrying many objects, you'll find that they hinder your ability to move correctly every once in awhile. Not enough to ruin the experience, but when you're trying to flee the enemy and carry important cargo, and you can't move because the box you're holding is dragging on the floor, there are some understandable gripes.
Long story short, though, RoboBlitz is one freshly entertaining game, and gameplay this fresh doesn't come around often enough these days!