Paradroid

The Good
A space freighter passes a storm, and the rays caused the droids to malfunction and kill the crew. An "Influence Device" has been beamed up on board to kill every droid in sight.

The player basically goes around each deck destroying all the droids that he/she comes across. What I like about your own is that you have the ability to transfer yourself to another droid, by holding down the fire button as you make contact with your target. I had a little bit of trouble with the “circuit diagram” puzzle at first, but I had no problem with it later on once I understood what my objective was. Transferring is ideal when you are about to run out of your own energy or want those features that the other droid has. When I was controlling the droid that I started out with, I realized that I could not fire my twin laser, but transferring seemed to solve that problem.

Your Influence Device, as well as other droids, are basically black circles with a three-digit serial number in the middle. These numbers are important because they tell you how powerful they are; and the higher the number, the more powerful they are. You start out as 001, which means that your Influence Device is much weaker than others and have no useful features, so I recommend that you transfer to another droid as soon as you can. When I played this game, I transferred to a droid with a 999 number, which indicates that that droid is state-of-the-art. I didn't want to transfer again. The way that some higher-numbered droids attack lower-numbered ones is amusing to watch.

While going around each deck, I had the opportunity to use the consoles. They give out useful information about your droid, as well as giving you a top-down view of the map. I normally use the console to bring up the map, to find out where the lifts and status lights are. You may have two consoles close to each other, others are far apart. There are multiple lifts on each deck, and the lifts take you to different decks. So if you access the deck map but cannot access the deck you wish, use another lift on the same deck.

All the decks are laid out nicely, in different colors so that you can tell them apart. There is a constant humming as you control your Influence Device, but I assume that that noise comes from your droid itself. The lasers sound like they should. One good thing about using the lasers is that you have an infinite supply; you can shoot as many as you want.

The Bad
When you choose to transfer between droids, you get a picture of what that droid actually looks like, not just a circle with serial numbers in the middle. It would have been nice to see the droid look like these pictures while hovering around the deck, and see them hover around and shoot each other. Also, some instructions on-screen what to do when you transfer would have been useful.

The Bottom Line
In Paradroid, you basically go around each deck destroying every droid by shooting or bumping them, or by transferring to another droid. The way that you transfer is good, since you don't have that option in other games that feature droids. And although users who are unfamiliar with the game already may have trouble understanding the circuit diagram, they would understand it after a while. As well as transferring to survive, you may wish to transfer anyway since all the droids are better than yours. As I mentioned above, one thing that I like are the consoles scattered around each deck; and although they allow you to do a variety of things, I only used them to find out information about my droid as well as view the entire deck.

The graphics and sound are excellent, with the decks structured differently and in different colors to tell them apart. The humming as you hover around the deck sets the atmosphere for the game.