Like the tide of battle, my enthusiasm for Walking War Robots has ebbed and flowed throughout the week. But In spite of lacking variety in some areas, it’s a game that’s managed to keep me coming back, so far at least.

Stamping about in a giant metal mech and blowing up other robots is fun, especially if you have a pre-existing love of mech warfare. Which is why I’ve found myself still playing Walking War Robots (WWR) this week, even though the game is a little repetitive.

Firstly, let’s talk about maps. In particular the lack of maps. Despite not playing more than a few games a day, I’ve been fighting on the same three maps.
Over.
And over.

And over.

It’s all starting to feel a little like Edge of Tomorrow – but without the prospect of waking up to Emily Blunt every day. According to the WWR Wiki, there’s four maps available. But so far my heavy metal feet are yet to tread the snowy terrain of the Yamantau map. [Edit: Ok, I’ve now experienced Yamantau, but it still seems to be the least frequent map I’ve encountered in my first week.]

There’s also a lack of variety in the missions. Every mission is a team ‘control the beacons’ mission, with victory also granted if you manage to destroy all enemy robots. Oh what I’d give for a free for all arena battle. Or some small team battles. Or just something else now and then to mix things up a bit.

And yet, despite these limitations, I’ve come back to WWR for a few battles each day. At about ten minutes a match, it’s easy to quickly dip in and out of the game. Being randomly assigned a team for each match also avoids the hassle of organising people to play at a specific time, and a lot less guilt if you do happen to need to drop out of a match early.

I’m still learning the best tactics to use when fighting with different mechs and armaments, which is helping to hold my interest. If you want to last the full eight minutes, it really pays to give some thought to the best way to fight with your chosen war robot and its arsenal.

Of course, the lengthy times taken to upgrade various weapons also helps drive repeat ‘play’. If you can call logging in simply to kick off a new weapon upgrade ‘playing’.
A week in and the limitations of this game are obvious. Yet back I go day after day for a couple of rounds of metal on metal mayhem. A fortnight or a month from now it may not have the same day in, day out appeal, but I can imagine it being one of the games I pick up when I want a quick hit of multiplayer fun.

 

Need to Know

• Available for iOS and Android
• Multiplayer – online only
• Free to play
• In-app purchase: in-game currency or experience multiplier.

 There’s some experiences you never forget. Like the first time you strap yourself in to sixty tonnes of stomping steel battlemech and stride through a war town landscape with rocket fire ringing in your ears.

My first serious ‘mech’ experience was an arcade based game at Timezone, back in the 90s. After a lengthy wait in line with another dozen eager mech pilots, I ponied up my cash and was strapped into a near life-size cockpit. For the next ten minutes, I and my fellow pilots chased each other around a virtual battlefield, our individual machines literally shaking and rattling with every explosion. Given the state of technology at the time, it was an incredibly immersive experience, and a hell of a lot of fun.

There was also the memorable but unfortunate time I was playing one of the MechWarrior games and discovered how easy it is to blow a set of PC speakers if you turn the bass up too much. The rest of the missions on that computer just didn’t feel the same without the satisfying thwump of exploding enemy mechs.

Although I’m not a hardcore fan of mech games, I do have a soft spot for piloting giant robots into battle. Which brings me to my first twenty four hours with ‘Walking War Robots’. (hereafter referred to as WWR)

There’s no discernible plot to this game, and no complex moral dilemmas for your character to solve. What you get is exactly as is advertised on the box – walking war robots. Giant walking robots that you can equip with a progressively more deadly arsenal of guns, rockets and energy weapons.

WWR is an easy game to pick up. Select your first mech, pick your weapons and join the battle. The controls are fairly intuitive, so before long you’ll be unleashing a fiery cascade of cannon fire on your foes. Just be aware that this is one game where more experienced players may actually respawn more times than the newbie – your number of respawns in a round being determined by how many mechs you have in your personal hanger.

Playing on my iPad, there’s enough visual detail to make it clear you’re striding between skyscrapers rather than just solid blocks. But as I soon discovered, the environment is indestructible, so no matter how many rounds you hammer in to a building, it’s still going to look picture perfect. Structures also seem to offer the same amount of cover no matter how many missile hits they take. Still, it’s a small quibble in the scheme of things.

In my first day of casual playing I’ve learned the basics of the game, upgraded some of my weapons, and even earned enough to buy some additional mechs. It’s been fun so far and now the challenge will be how long WWR can hold my attention for.

If you’re a long term WWR player, I’d love to hear in the comments what keeps bringing you back to this game.

Need to Know

• Available for iOS and Android
• Multiplayer – online only
• Free to play.
• In-app purchase: in-game currency or experience multiplier.