Looking back at R.A.D.

Ah, console gaming. It certainly has come a long way ever since the humble era when players found massive amounts and nearly endless entertainment from passing a pixilated dot with one another using a couple of rectangular planks on the side of the screen. Nowadays, games have become as immersive as ever, leading to more developers and studios to come up with new ways to make their games fresh. Since I’m talking about the topic of immersion and refreshing game mechanics, I’m going to focus on a title that there is a chance you might not have even heard of before, especially if you are not familiar with what the Playstation 2 came out with during its historic run. The game in question is the cult classic that goes by name of R.A.D., which is an acronym for Robot Alchemic Drive.

Now, I don’t even remember the exact year this game was released in – which just goes to show how old I’m getting. Damn it –, but I am pretty certain that it was sometime between 2003 and 2004. At the time the Playstation 2 was at a secure spot as the top console of that generation. As such, it was up to the developers to come up with how they can make the most of the then-revolutionary dual shock II controllers. The creators of RAD solved this riddle in what was at the time an unprecedented way to present the mecha (that’s the nerd term for anything that has giant robots in them) genre and a very uncommon way of utilizing a console’s controller. Now, the reason I say the latter is because by no means was R.A.D. the first video game to ever do away with the conventional control settings – the one where you either move with the analog stick or directional buttons –, but it was in that title that the decision just had the most sense; it was just perfect for the game. What results is probably one of the greatest video games featuring giant fighting robots in the history of gaming.

You see, Robot Alchemic Drive is a game inspired by those old mecha anime, such as Voltes V, Daimos, and Mazinger Z (search for those online if you don’t know them, you two-bit Superhero-loving nerd), where players enter a world that’s being invaded by Kaiju, or giant monsters. Given that premise, it’s up to you, player man, to switch between controlling the main character, which is a human that operates one of the giant robots, and the robot itself. Now, controlling your human character in the game is pretty standard fare: you got the analog stick for movements and such. When you get into the cockpit of your mecha, though, it’s a whole other story, as it turns your Playstation controller into a robot console where even each footstep it takes is manually handled. If my memory serves me right, I think you walked with the R2 and L2 buttons, with each button corresponding to a respective leg of your bot.

Perhaps that’s why it didn’t go on to become one of the greatest games ever: it was just too technical and complex for the casual nerd. Still, I do believe this one needs a remake.