Sawbuck Gamer

Randobot

Good Luck With That

Randobot leaves too much to chance.

By Jason Reich • November 28, 2012

Sawbuck Gamer is our daily review of a free or cheap ($10 or less) game.

Randobot
Creator: Serius Games
Platform: Browser
Price: Free

Poor Randobot. Plucked from slumber like an unripe mango and dispatched on a mission before his circuits have an opportunity to fully charge, what he really needs is a few months of robot physical therapy. When are we going to learn, people? This is the kind of treatment that’s ultimately going to cause our mechanical servants to turn on their human masters.

The game starts with an interesting premise: Pressed into service prematurely, Randobot’s movement and weapons systems only have a chance of firing on any given attempt, so you have to allocate your limited power to the systems you think you’ll need the most. The problem with Randobot is that when your crippled systems don’t work, they simply…don’t work. Even when you’ve memorized the location and timing of every single pit, platform, and enemy in the area, whoops, sorry, guess your jump function failed that time. Back to the beginning. Challenge is one thing. It’s something else to repeat a level again and again just because you flipped tails too many times. If you’re masochistic enough to play the odds until you boost your abilities’ success rate to 100 percent, all you’re left with is a pretty dull game. Even the shadowy scientists who built this sorry bucket of bolts don’t seem all that upset about the potential destruction of the universe. Good thing, because Randobot is irreparably on the fritz.

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