I appreciate when games try to put a new twist on a tried-and-true genre. Without innovation, no matter how small, we’d keep playing the same games over, and over, and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I find myself doing that sometimes regardless, but I like to give credit where credit is due when game developers at least attempt to give us something new.
Take the real-time strategy genre, for example. There are tons of RTS games out there. There are tons of tower defense strategy games. And there are tons of third-person action games as well. But a mishmash of all three is not something you see every day, which is what excited me about Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations that it could be a strategy game unicorn, though it does offer a sturdy foundation for what will hopefully be a future sequel that expands on its big ideas.
If Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids sounds like a Ratchet & Clank game, that’s because it draws heavy inspiration thematically and tonally from Insomniac’s lovable duo, make no mistake. Chip is an earthling that finds himself in the role of Earth’s defender alongside Clawz, his robot companion. Aliens have invaded the planet to take control of its Brainium supply, a key natural resource that both the aliens and Earth’s robots run on.
It didn’t take long for me to write a note about its massive Ratchet & Clank vibes, thanks to its tongue-in-cheek, fourth wall-breaking dialogue and kooky characters. Backed by good voice acting, Chip ‘n Clawz has the heart necessary to bring levity to the strategy genre. In that regard, it is a breath of fresh air.
So, what does a third-person action, real-time-strategy, tower-defense-game look like? Not as complicated as it sounds, for better and for worse. Chip ‘n Clawz is easy to pick-up, even if you’ve never played a strategy game, thanks to straightforward controls on console, and a story campaign that acclimates you to the mechanics at a nice pace. Each mission takes about 20 minutes, and generally-speaking, the goal is to defend your HQ while defeating the enemy HQ or boss. Occasionally, missions are escort missions or straight base defense missions, which mix things up ever so slightly.
My big complaint is that its novelty wears off about halfway through its eight-hour campaign. And like strategy games before it, there comes a point where little to no real strategy is needed, other than building the maximum number of structures you can to spam your robot army and overwhelm the enemy. If anything, you may find that you need to replay a mission to place your structures at different locations on the map to be more effective. And that’s fine—I don’t need Chip ‘n Clawz to be Crusader Kings 3, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little underwhelmed, eventually just going through the motions to clear the mission. It needs a bit more strategy cowbell, if you will.
Okay, so that’s where the third-person combat comes into play to keep things fresh, right? Not exactly. Both with Chip and with Clawz, you melee attack with one button and shoot with the right trigger button, which means all you’re doing is button-mashing enemies and building a combo string up to 16 hits before it resets. It’s mindless and monotonous, and not the feather in its cap that I hoped it would be.
On the contrary, I did enjoy its tower-defense mechanics, which sees you acquiring blueprints for various robot construction structures and placing them strategically on the map. There’s a nice variety of robots to choose from, too. Miner bots collect Brainium, which is required to build or repair anything, but there are also Boxers, Shooters, Flyers, Turrets, Artillery, a Garage, and an Ammo Depot for your guns. There is a limit to how many of each you can place, as well as a limit to how many robots each structure can produce. For instance, a Shooter robot building can produce a maximum of three robots, but if one dies, it will spit out another one for you rather quickly. You can place these on the fly with a button presses, or in Commander Mode, which gives you a bird’s eye view of the battlefield and lets you establish rally points for your entire army, or for each unit type individually. Each robot type has a counter, too. So, for example, if there are a lot of ranged enemies, you need to dispatch a lot of melee-focused Boxer units to take them out. Or if there are tons of enemy structures in your way, lay down some Artillery structures to bomb them from a distance. But once you get the lay of the land and figure out which robots to focus on for each mission, that’s pretty much it.
With that said, there are three boss battles, and I admit that they are tough at first. I had to replay each one before fully grasping what was being asked of me, which was fine. Additionally, in between story missions, you can take on optional challenge missions, which push you more than the standard missions, but are not all that different from the main levels. Where the story missions give three optional objectives, challenge missions sometimes make them a win condition instead, for instance. Completing challenge missions and gathering the HQ blueprints within them unlocks additional weapons for Chip and Clawz, as well as passive boosts such as tougher friendly robots, or buildings with higher robot production caps. You can also find blueprints in the main missions, though I don’t think they are critically important to your success or failure during the campaign.
Adding a layer of functionality, the entire story campaign can be played in co-op with a friend. One plays as Chip and the other as Clawz as you work together to complete missions. This can be done both locally in splitscreen or online, and it works seamlessly in my experience. It did help to have both characters together at the same time since they have different abilities. Chip can overdrive structures and robots to make them more efficient, while Clawz can repair damaged structures, keeping you from having to do a costly rebuild if they get destroyed. Each character also has a different vehicle, which are sometimes needed to access hidden areas that may contain additional blueprints for robot structures and collectibles.
If you’re the type of weirdo who likes a little PvP in your strategy games, Chip ‘n Clawz has you covered there too. As with co-op, you can take on other players either locally or in online PvP matches, in 1v1 or 2v2 skirmishes. I admit that the inclusion of PvP is a nice one, especially considering that human opponents are more unpredictable than AI aliens. However, there are some balancing issues currently, with some of the HQ mods being quite overpowered. I was using one that allowed me to build robots faster, and I smoked my opponent in just a couple of minutes without suffering a single point of damage on my HQ. That’s the thing about single-player equipment or features sometimes – you can’t just do a one-to-one copy of them in multiplayer without breaking the game in some form or fashion.
Ultimately, Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids has some good bones, even if they aren’t quite as strong as I had hoped for. There are some good ideas present to build on in a potential sequel, but the novelty of the gameplay loop does wear off rather quickly. Adding melee combat and shooting to an RTS/Tower defense hybrid didn’t pay off in a satisfying way, and there are points where “strategy” is optional—a cardinal sin for strategy games. With that said, it is still charming, polished, and feature-rich enough to entertain you for 10 or 12 hours.
* The product in this article was sent to us by the developer/company.
