Robot Squad Simulator 2017

I went into this one expecting a shovelware time-sink and came out with a mildly conflicted opinion, which is about the highest praise a low-budget sim from 2016 can realistically earn. The concept is legitimately interesting: you operate a squad of remote-controlled robots on missions too dangerous for humans, switching between an EOD ground unit with a grabbing arm, an RC spy bot, a flying drone, and an underwater sub depending on what the objective demands. As a strategy and sim player who spends most of his time in games where decision-making has 40 variables, the robot-switching loop here scratches a very specific itch, even if it never goes deep enough to satisfy it for long. The mission structure breaks into six tutorial stages followed by sixteen story missions, and the variety is broader than you might expect. You are exploring collapsed mineshafts, scanning sunken shipwrecks from below, running spy infiltrations past armed guards, and neutralizing explosives in tight corridors. Each robot type handles differently, and the ten mountable accessories, from cameras to upgraded drills, give you a light progression layer as you unlock and attach them across the playthrough. None of this is deep by sim standards, but the mission-type diversity does a reasonable job of masking the content ceiling for the first few hours. Here is where the honest accounting starts. The controls are the game's biggest liability. Rotating the ground robots is genuinely awkward, the camera toggles between first-person and third-person at inopportune moments, and the arm-and-claw mechanics on the EOD unit require a level of patience that verges on tedious. Community feedback on Steam lands squarely in the "mixed" range, and the consistent complaint across multiple reviews is that the underlying control scheme fights the player rather than serving them. There are also reported spelling errors throughout the text, which is a small thing that still signals the production budget pretty loudly. The graphics are functional rather than impressive - decent robot models, generic environments, changeable weather that adds mild atmosphere. The case for picking this up is narrow but real. If you have burned through every police, fire, and construction sim in the Ultimate Games catalogue and want something that at least tries a different scenario, Robot Squad Simulator 2017 fills a genuinely uncommon niche. There is no other widespread title doing bomb-disposal RC robot ops in this format. The six training missions do a serviceable job of onboarding newcomers, which is worth noting - the tutorial is structured and thorough enough that someone who has never touched a simulator will not be immediately lost. The full playthrough is short, probably three to five hours for an average player, so set your session expectations accordingly and do not come in looking for a long-haul campaign.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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