While searching through the rubble of a war torn city on the planet Iron Star, a small band of droids and their robo-dog Zobby find the remains of another droid that was obviously destroyed in battle, but this one is different.

The name of this droid turns out to be Glitch, and due to the severe damage sustained that's about the only thing he (that's you) can remember. Turns out that the droids' artificial planet is embroiled in a war of robocide instigated by seriously bad guy robot General Corrosive and his personally designed Mil Bot army that consists of various grades of robots from wimpy grunts to scary guards, flying attack bots and the awesome Titans. General Corrosive is a new improved, tougher and more intelligent droid designed by Morbot scientists led by Dr. Exavolt, and he broke free and escaped the moment he was powered up. He soon sets up a base in a disused droid manufacturing plant and you just know what happened next…

   

So there you are - a newly reconstructed droid who's dumb enough to get involved in the war against a huge, powerful and intelligent enemy who's manufactured a huge army intent on the extinction of the entire droid race. Glitch controls like any other third person game and you can select which primary weapon to hold in his right hand, or secondary weapon/device to use with his left. Pressing X brings up the left hand weapon menu and B the right, you then scroll to the one you want to select (a bit like MGS2) - the game also pauses while you're doing this which is a life saver during the more hectic battles- you rarely seem to have enough ammo for the best weapon for a particular level, and usually have to hunt for it. Droid weapons have lots of odd names but many resemble other more familiar ones as far as usage goes; the SPEW (it stands for Small Projectile Emitter Weapon) is like a submachine gun, the scatter gun is a shotgun, and the rivet gun is the best thing for sniping with. There are other blade firing guns and lasers, and a cool rocket launcher, but my favourite weapon has to be the control tether, which can be fired at the rear port of various unsuspecting Mil robots in order to take control of them - there is no limit on how long you can control the enemy other than how much damage they can take and the range limit of the tether (which can be upgraded like all the other weapons). Glitch's left hand is used for various grenades, molotovs or a scope that can be used to spot distant enemies (and can also be used in conjunction with certain guns).

   

Glitch fights his way the numerous and varied levels (wrecked cityscapes and huge factories and installations to desert), fighting bosses, solving simple puzzles, controlling static gun emplacements and driving/riding vehicles - it's an action-packed adventure alright, and the enemy bots and much of the scenery can be blown literally to smithereens - when one explodes smoke, flame and debris flies everywhere and it always looks impressively devastating. Although Glitch really gets to kick some serious bot ass, some sections get really tough (although you occasionally get some help from other droids, you always feel heavily outnumbered), but the game always seems to lure you back with a cool change of pace or type of level. The voice acting is occasionally annoying but always apt, and general sense of humour permeates the game throughout (the first two droids you meet are called Screwed and Hosed, and the in-game store is run by two dodgy droid named Shady and Mr Pockets.

If you have a droid-loving buddy or three Glitch's split screen multiplayer options add some real lastability to the game, and you can control other bigger bots and even drive vehicles Halo-style on some of the bigger levels. Metal Arms: Glitch in the System is a cracking game, a bit like the aforementioned Halo, a bit like Messiah, a bit like Munch's Oddysee and a bit like good old Paradroid, sadly the experience is tainted by a few levels that are a little too repetitive or linear for their own good, and some visual uglies like clipping (things disappear into the scenery) and shearing on some levels (the screen seems to tear and split across the middle when you turn). But ignore my (few) gripes, Glitch really does feel like a sort of a "Diddy Halo", with almost as high ambitions and production values, and is likely to appeal to all Xbox shooter fans tired of the countless po-faced and unimaginative games of late.