Real Steel World Robot Boxing is an entertaining Windows Phone 8 game modeled in the spirit of the movie ‘Real Steel’. Think of it as a game of Rock’em Sock’em Robots but with more intensity.
Real Steel World Robot Boxing has 24 robots to fight or buy and 4 gaming modes to test your mechanical pugilistic skills with. The game has been out for a little while now and while there is room for improvement; Real Steel World Robot Boxing comes across as a fun game for our Windows Phone 8 gaming library.
Game Layout
When you launch Real Steel World Robot Boxing, you are greeted by a full-page ad banner. One would think in tapping on the ‘X’ at the bottom of the advertisement would send you to a main menu but it doesn’t. Instead, you find yourself in the middle of a series of tutorial matches that walks you through the gaming controls. The full page ad will greet you on every launch (unless you make an in-app purchase) but the tutorial is a one time deal. After you complete the tutorial, you'll be greeted by the game's main menu.
While I cannot say there’s anything wrong with this set-up, it does give the game an odd feel.
When you do find your way to Real Steel World Robot Boxing’s main menu, the options are rather minimal. You can jump into the career game, access the game’s settings and get free coins by liking the game over on YouTube. Settings sound levels and control orientations.
Here’s a quick note about navigating around Real Steel World Robot Boxing. Do not use your Windows Phone Back button. Use the on-screen directional arrows and “x” marks to navigate backwards/forwards or close pop-up windows. If you use the Windows Phone Back button, you will exit the game.
Across the top of the screen, throughout the game, you have a statistical bar that reflects you energy refills, current robot in use, the level of the robot and your cash counts. You also have a link to view your gaming achievements in the left corner of this information bar.
If you need a jump on buying robots, coins, or energy cores all you need to do is tap the “+” in the right corner of the information bar to access the in-app purchase options. They range in price from $.99 for an energy core to $109.99 for a collection of twenty robots.
When you are ready to resume your robot-fighting career, you will be sent to a secondary menu that has your gaming options. They include:
- Fight Modes: Championship Bracket, Free Sparing, Time Attack, and Daily Exhibition. More on this in a second.
- Robot Dealer: Here is where you can use your fight earnings to buy new and stronger robots.
- Owned Robots: An overview of your robot collection.
- Upgrade: Spend your fight earnings to improve your robot’s abilities. You can upgrade the robot’s motherboard, power core, chassis, mainframe, and hydraulics. A full upgrade is possible or you can purchase the upgrades one item at a time. Each upgrade increase the robot’s armor, power and special abilities.
- Paint Shop: Don’t care for the bare metal look? The paint shop has a series of color patterns and styles to let you customize your robot. The paint jobs are not free and are just another way to spend those earnings.
- Mystery Draw: A card game where you can bet your earnings to earn rewards that include additional robots and coins.
Your four fight modes breaks down as follows.
The Championship Bracket sends you up against twenty-four opponents to see who the best robot in town is. Time Attack is a match against a randomly selected opponent and you have to dispatch them as quickly as possible. Free Sparing lets you choose the level of your opponent and the Daily Exhibition is a match for bonus cash.
Game Play
While there are plenty of options with the pre-fight screens, the actual boxing match is rather simply laid out. Game play for Real Steel World Robot Boxing has you controlling your robot with a series of on-screen controls. Movement controls are in the lower left corner of the screen while your offensive and defensive controls rest in the lower right corner of the screen.
Across the top of the screen, you will find your robot and their opponent’s vital signs and power levels. The goal of each match is to beat your opponent into tiny chunks of metal.
You purchase upgrades to keep pace with the level of competition you face and essentially dodge, weave and punch your way to victory.
Reel Steel World Robot Boxing paces your game play by requiring one energy unit from your robot’s core to box. If you run dry of energy units you can buy additional units through the in-app store or wait five minutes and your robot will energize automatically.
Overall Impression
I have to say I enjoyed Real Steel World Robot Boxing’s game play. The controls were simple and you could either go toe-to-toe with your opponent or take more of a boxing approach to victory. Graphics were a little on the dark side but well drawn up nonetheless. The robot competition does keep you on your toes, giving the game a nice level of challenge.
What I didn’t like is the user interface, the lack of a help section and the lengthy load times.
I found myself exiting the game more times than not when I expected the Windows Phone Back button to send me to the previous screen. While the tutorial does a nice job of walking you through game play, the game really needs a help section that can be used as a reference.
The load times for Real Steel were at times long enough to make you wonder if the game had crashed. The game goes to a black screen when launched (no splash screen) which really makes you wonder if things are working properly. I would also like to see those full page ads converted to smaller ad-banners that appear on the game’s menus. I understand the ads keep the game free but the full page ads just come across as annoying.
While there is room for improvement with Real Steel World Robot Boxing, overall the game is worth a shot. I do not know if the game could stand up to marathon gaming sessions but Real Steel World Robot Boxing does a good job of helping you pass shorter spurts of time.
Real Steel World Robot Boxing is a free, ad-supported game with plenty of in-app purchase opportunities. The game is available for Windows Phone 8, which does include low-memory devices.
You can find your copy of Real Steel World Robot Boxing here in the Windows Phone Store.
