In Robots you'll live the adventures of a genius robot named Rodney Copperbottom as he moves to the big city and becomes a hero. With a little help from his friends, he'll overcome an evil plan and make his wildest dreams come true.

The Robots tie-in video game turns its intrepid hero, Rodney Copperbottom, into a rock-'em, sock-'em action star. Roughly following the movie plot, Rodney is a young inventor who moves to the big city in pursuit of an inventing job with the famous inventor Bigweld. He's rebuffed, and discovers a plot to get rid of the older robots, called "outmodes." As Rodney, the single player gathers bolts and blueprints for his inventions, including Wonderbot, and fights unfriendly robots by clubbing them with his wrench or blasting them with scrap metal. Collecting the blueprints and other items are usually the key to finishing a level, and sometimes you just have to try any random action to find them (you're strongly recommended to upgrade to the object finder). Occasionally you'll run into other characters like Lug, Cappy, Tupper, and Aunt Fanny, but it's Rodney's show, constantly accompanied and occasionally assisted by Wonderbot. There's also a dizzying arcade-like race in the transport pod (the DVD includes a one- to four-player head-to-head race version). The game feels a lot like Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo. Both games offer a marvelous 3-D environment with a real sense of height and space, collecting bolts for inventions is a central goal, and both overrely on timed jumping, which can be a problem when the camera perspective shifts. (The camera angle in Robots is a little easier to control, however.) The sound-alike voice actors are solid, and you can unlock video clips and other bonuses. All in all, it's a fairly safe and fun game for kids to play or watch, and if one of your measuring sticks of a game is not being able to beat it in a day or two, Robots is long enough to offer a good deal of playing time. --David Horiuchi

Pros:

• Three-dimensional world that allows you to fly, jump, fall, etc.
• Looks great
• Fun for kids

Cons

• At some point you'll probably get stuck, either in a puzzle or looking for objects
• Too much timed jumping
• Only three save-game slots, and some long stretches without save opportunities