Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids

I came into this one expecting a gimmick. A shooter-RTS crossover from the X-COM creator sounds like a pitch meeting gone sideways, and my first instinct was to clock where the third-person action would fall apart. Turns out the shooter side is the weaker leg, but not in a way that kills the experience. Chip 'n Clawz vs. The Brainioids is a base-building real-time strategy game where you never leave the ground level. You control Chip or Clawz directly in third person, running around semi-open maps, capturing replikon nodes to unlock buildings and units, mining Brainium, and directing your robot army while also personally wading into combat. The Command View lets you pull back to a tactical overhead perspective at any time, and toggling between boots-on-the-ground and strategy view is the game's best trick. When it clicks, it actually clicks. The replikon system deserves credit because it stops missions from collapsing into the same copy-paste opening you see in most RTS titles. You cannot build anything until you physically go capture the relevant node, which forces each mission to start differently. One run you are racing to grab the mining replikon so Brainium flows early; the next you are sprinting for the attack replikon so you can field combat bots before a wave hits your HQ. The unit roster has its own rock-paper-scissors logic too - Boxers, Shooters, Flyers, Turrets, Artillery - and blueprint upgrades you find mid-mission carry forward, giving a light progression feel across the campaign's 23 levels. Each level is designed to run roughly 20 minutes, which is short enough that replaying for a better star rating does not feel punishing. Here is the honest bit. The third-person combat is thin. Both heroes melee with one button and shoot with the trigger, building combos up to 16 hits before the counter resets. It is serviceable but monotonous, and if you show up looking for twitchy shooter satisfaction, you will be disappointed. Movement is also a bit flat - no double jump, no ledge grab, no real momentum to exploit. Chip gets a hoverbike and an overdrive ability that speeds up bots and buildings; Clawz gets a jetpack and repairs bots and structures. The character split makes co-op feel purposeful, but in solo play you just pick the one that suits the moment and swap if needed, respawning at base each time. The strategic depth plateau arrives around the campaign's midpoint too, once you learn that stacking maximum structures and flooding the map with robots is usually enough to win. Hardcore RTS players will feel the ceiling fast. Online player counts are also thin right now, so PvP modes carry some risk of empty lobbies - split-screen local co-op is the safer multiplayer bet. What keeps it alive past those complaints is the tone and the co-op feel. The game commits fully to a 90s Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic and does not take itself seriously for a second. The self-aware humour lands more often than it should. Online and couch co-op both support full crossplay, and Snapshot includes a Friend Pass so one of you can bring in a pal without a second purchase, which is genuinely useful for getting someone to actually try it with you. A post-launch DLC campaign called Going Underground has already landed and adds a new story arc. At around 8-10 hours for the base campaign plus side missions, the content-to-price ratio is reasonable for what it is.

Fred · Scout Team

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