Let’s face it folks, recycling is something we do because we know its right help out the Earth we live on. But its not very exciting to think of all our recyclables becoming new material. Sure, we all know ( it’s radical that our recycled paper can become new notebooks and packaging without tearing down more trees. But the thought lacks a certain entertaining element in it for most kids and adults. The Rector Studio developers decided to create a game that could change your mind about the entertainment value of scrap metal. Does using left over pieces of metal to create an enormous fighting robot interest you? If it does then Rustbucket Rumble is just the casual action game waiting to be played.
In the story, humans made the earth a mess and left for a new planet. What they left behind was the machines that once served them without reserve. The arch-rivals robots of the Robotic Engineering Debot (the Red team) and the Blucom Discarded Plastics and Metals (the Blue Team) decided they could have their own robot battles. Each company is now searching for materials they can use to build a gigantic and powerful robot to blast the other team into oblivion.
This 2D side-scrolling and team-based combat game is fun to play when you’re in the mood for a bit of silly fighting. With six different robot fighters, and each one equipped with their own stats and weapons, there is a robot for every fighting style. Working as a team, the three players must attack the opposing company and literally turn those players into scraps. Once the enemy becomes a can of recyclables, you bring them back to your base to help build your team’s giant robot. There is a catch, each player’s robot has a set time to re-spawn with full health after becoming a recyclable can.
Speed and thinking ahead are key in Rustbucket Rumble. Using a keyboard to control your robot can slow you down. Since the game supports controllers, I highly recommend using the controller if you have one synched. Making your moves as fast as you can is vital, especially when playing with one of the slower / heavy-duty robots. With bombardier, ninja, brute, engineer, grunt and sniper models, there is a robot for every type of fighting player.
Each robot’s stats are simple and to the point. Their health and speed are clearly marked and each one’s abilities are fairly easy to handle after working through the tutorials. Playing 3 vs 3 is fun because there isn’t too many players hogging up the map and there is enough chaos with the recycling going on the two sides. I was impressed by a few players helping each other out after someone became scraped. The robot left standing on the team, while the others were re-spawning, would rush over and send the can to a safe place so they could heal away from combat. The only thing lacking from this simple-yet amusing game is a chat feature. There is really isn’t time during the fights to talk but having a few key or button-set words would be helpful for teams to be able to coordinate better.
This colorful maps are reminiscence of the children’s TV shows like Bob the Builder. This game is fit for any aged gamer and it has a kid-friendly vibe to it. Rustbucket is the type of game schools would encourage during computer classes to teach them how cool recycling can be without having the idea blasted across the screen. When playing the game, there are no written or spoken messages that preach the recycling memo. It’s all about the fun of trying to build a giant robot out of your opponent’s scraps.
After being turned fed into the machine that creates the mega-fighting robot a few dozen times, I became more determined than ever to destroy the opposing team in order to build my own fighting robot. It’s one of those games that is fun to play for a half hour at a time or when you’re not in the mood to play an in-depth fighter. For what it is, Rustbuckt Rumble is an entertaining casual fighter that lets players release some energy. While still in beta on Steam, the recycling action is set to be released sometime in April. I recommend playing the beta and see for yourself how Rustbucket Rumble can help you think recycling isn’t so boring after all.