Oh dear, my leg has been chopped off. I suppose I am dead. In most games, I would be. But not here, not in the amazingly named Clone Drone in the Danger Zone. Here, it is but a flesh wound, except I have no flesh. I am a robot, and on the floor lies my robo-limb. I don’t even remark upon it, or do anything to suggest it once belonged to me and I rather relied on it. I just carry on, hopping, as if nothing happened at all.
Clone Drone in the Danger ZoneDeveloper/Publisher: Doborog GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on Steam Early Access for £15.49
Another time I didn’t even realise my arm had gone until I went to use my bow and couldn’t, because it required two arms.
It’s all very Monty Python and it’s absolutely supposed to be. Clone Drone in the Danger Zone is a comedy. A game where, and bear with me here, humans are made into robots, by robots, and are made to fight other robots in a series of gladiatorial challenges. I think. I mean, it doesn’t really matter – there is a story but don’t worry about it.
It’s more about the moment-to-moment fun, and listening to the dead-pan robo commentators who follow your action, remarking on how well you’re doing for a human and delighting in how you’re about to be ripped apart. There’s a very endearing earnestness to them.
Everything revolves around combat. Clone Drone is a (mostly) melee-combat game like Chivalry, where you WASD your character around while swiping a kind of laser sword to produce an attack. And if you’ve ever played a Chivalry game, or its like, you’ll know how slapstick and silly they can be. It’s as if Clone Drone latched onto this inherent ridiculousness and stripped away everything else.