Carnage Heart

The Good
Novel programming system with chips.

The Bad
graphics were a little low res, even for the PS1.

The Bottom Line
Carnage Heart brought robots, combat, and programming to the console and in a format that did not require adding a keyboard. The single player game was a series of campaign maps where you attempted to get your OKEs (Over Kill Engines) to take over the enemy base. But your OKEs only performed as well as the hardware they are given and the chips that provided instruction. Research and Development is the name of the game. You would buy new bodies, weapons, and other parts for your OKEs and then drop a series of chips into them that told the OKE where to shoot in an arena. Then you sent the units out on to the map. You controlled the map based strategy of the OKE movement, but when combat ensued between two units, the chips were on the table, Battles are a hands-off affair. There are a considerable variety of parts inclusing aerial mines, flying OKEs, tracked OKEs, bipedal and quadrupedal OKEs. Lasers, shotguns, missiles round out the arsenal. A battle can be 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 or small variations in between. It even had modes where you could run tournament simulations between multiple teams of OKEs. Everyone just had to bring their team on a memory card. Great programming game. Would love to see it come back on switch or other modern game consoles.

The Good
It was an original idea... having to program your bots instead of controlling them directly sounds fun.
But....

The Bad
The programming in itself isn't interesting at all...
First, using a gamepad to design a program is slow and a pain in the, erm, eye.
Then, you don't spend half as much time making "design choices" for your program than debugging it. You'll spend hours looking for what you've done wrong which makes your bot act as a total idiot.. And believe me, any programmer will say the same, debugging is a the most boring thing in programming.
So, it's fun at all.
And the learning curve is vertical ! It takes a lot of hours to get a vague idea about what you're doing... you'll probably leave in disgust way before !
In addition, the graphics are soooo bland
You have now understood this game is not very good !

The Bottom Line
Carnage heart takes a novel idea and screws it. The gameplay is awful and there aren't even any graphical delight that may distract you from the fact that it sucks.
If you've never programmed anything, you'll be confused.
If you have programmed in the past, like me, you'll be confused AND you'll soon realize carnage heart is only about the dull part of programming : debugging. Stay away !

The Good
The game has excellent configurability. Most games only let you mix and match the weapons, armor, components, and sometimes the paint job. This game lets you do that, and the AI too! The programming for the OverKill Engines (OKEs) is an incredibly fun area once you get the hang. Crazy AI designs have been seen to add odd fun to the game, too. War-machines dancing to Swan Lake is not the aim of the game, but far more entertaining. (And sometimes easier than programming them to fight, too!)

The Bad
While the programming the main, and best part, it can get a little frustrating. Someone without good experience in debugging and lots of patience won't get this game. The graphics are unremarkable, and the story is pretty null. The game also tends to drag on for days, which may or may not be a good thing.

The Bottom Line
Excellent game for strategy lovers who want to do more complex maneuvers than 'click, click' warfare. While it can be slow, and the learning curve is pretty steep, it only took me a couple hours to get the hang and start dishing out some mean machines. Certainly not a game to go for on the graphics, this game is clearly targeted toward people interested in robotics, programming, and ludicrous levels of customization.