Kick Bot!
- EU release: N/A
- NA release: N/A
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Warthog
- Publisher: THQ
- NGC Magazine: Score: NA
- Mods Used: Widescreen Hack
Currently, this is the only prototype GameCube game I plan to cover. There aren’t many, some of them (such as Nintendo’s early demos) were never intended to be games and others don’t play nicely with emulators, however, I was curious about Battlebots so I decided to check it out. Battlebots is the US equivalent of Robot Wars, a show where amateur roboticists create remote control robots with weapons to smash each other to pieces.
Battlebots on GameCube looks like it would have been a decent adaptation. The game gives you up to four weapons, and it controls quite well. Parts fly off as damage is sustained, and you have a limited amount of “time” to allocate for repairs of different parts. You can create your own robot, but have to unlock most parts. Unfortunately, a bunch of arenas and bots are missing so if you end up on those, it will crash the game, so you can’t progress far.
Unfortunately for Warthog games, the show was cancelled and THQ saw no reason to continue funding development. Considering that Warthog games were making a GBA Robot Wars game and the other Robot Wars game at the time was just on PC and Xbox, it’s a shame that this couldn’t have been turned into a Robot Wars game, as it was targeting GameCube and PS2, as it seems like it would have been a decent adaptation.
Fine
Actual arena fights in BattleBots seem a bit simplistic at this point. Computer-controlled robots seem extremely aggressive, and will generally lock onto your robot immediately. Some of the robot arenas seem to look pretty bare at this point, though the game will eventually have many different arenas, some based on real-world locations like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, others based on fictitious ones. And just like in the TV show, BattleBots will let you switch the camera to a first-person “robot’s eye” view during a battle. BattleBots is currently scheduled for release on the GameCube and PS2 this November.
Andrew Park, GameSpy
Should it be finished?
It would take too much work to turn it into something that could be released now, but I would like to see a Robot Wars-like game.
GameCube Games by Date
2002: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2003: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2004: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2005: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2006: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
