Gear Up (Premium) Review

Doctor Entertainment brings Robot Wars into the 21st century with this Free To Play, multiplayer mechanical mayhem that is Gear Up.

Usually when I play Free to Play games, they are one of a few things: incomplete, buggy or just rubbish. I am glad to say Gear Up has none of these “features” and instead pleases both the eye and the gamer in me, with basic but effective graphics and a whole load of fun caused by robots shooting at each other.

So what is the game I hear you ask? Well it’s a child friendly version of Call of Duty, with robots in place of soldiers, but then used in the 3rd person, giving it a more “wide angle” look.

The game begins with the customisation of your vehicle, a robot that you will drive into battle and fight for victory. Having access to the premium features, which usually costs £15 for instant access to all vehicle parts (although you can earn them in game through continuous play), I set on the creation of my warrior with my catalogue of parts. After a good ten minutes of deciding which hull, turret, propulsion system, primary and secondary weapons I required, coupled with any additional flags or decoration my vehicle required, I took to the field with my machine, set on causing carnage.

Anything is possible in the "Customiser"

A choice of game modes are given: conquest, deathmatch and team deathmatch. Similar to the standard modes in Call of Duty, but with a much brighter and child friendly background: Conquest consists of teams of up to 8 vs 8 fighting for control over radio antenna which represents bases across the maps, with the first team reaching 1000 points being crowned the winners. Deathmatch (Free for All) and Team Deathmatch work under the same principle, being played out across a variety of maps of which the current build has at least 10 to choose from.

The basic, yet intuitive control scheme really benefitted this game, with a simple WASD movement system, Q and E strafing and a click and shoot weapons system, there was no stopping the fun of Gear Up. Why complicate a game with loads of functions when all you want to do is fire and hope for the best? This is the idea I take with any shoot ‘em up arcade style game - and it doesn’t usually end well. Gear Up

After all of your fun blowing up robots, im sure you will have had that signature final kill, or amazing hover kill. You can watch these back in the Replayer Extra, allowing you to save your winning moments forever.

Overall, I think Gear Up has potential to become even better with an extension of gaming modes and maps, but for a Free to Play the developers should be happy with their work. The idea of gaining access to more specialised parts with level progression, or hot skipping to the full set by paying is not a system I am a fan of. With these systems you have players with very little skill managing to beat the better players, as they've paid for the awesome weaponry that standard players haven't unlocked yet. Where is the sportsmanship in that?

With patience comes skill, and I am sure this game could give some more serious developers a run for their money.