Colony Arena Online is a cooperative life sim video game with bowling ball droids that chase you to your death.
Alright, that’s not entirely true. It’s actually a third person shooter where you play as a robot fighting against other rebel robots to liberate planets. It is cooperative, but that requires friends who also own the game. Which shouldn’t be that hard of a sell, because it is only $1.99, and honestly, is not that bad. I daresay it was even fun.
Sword or Gun?
When you first exit your spaceship on to the alien planet, you come out wielding a sword. That sentence makes this game sound so cool. The only good thing I have to say about the sword is that you can use the number keys to change the color, almost like a lightsaber. On my first playthrough, I couldn’t figure out how to put my sword away and pull out my gun, which really sullied that experience. I was able to do some light platforming and find some enemies, but they had guns. And you’re really not supposed to bring a sword to a gunfight.
I gave it another go, thinking it was the character I had chosen maybe being a sword based class. Nope. So I hit all the keys until I found the one that pulls my gun out. R is the key you’re looking for if you happen to be playing and haven’t figured it out yet. Some of the other keys did things that looked cool, but I’m not sure what they did exactly.
Now that I had my gun and was on a planet that didn’t require me jumping on exploding platforms, I was good to go! And I made a pretty decent run at it, clearing three out of I’m not entirely sure how many areas. I wanted to keep going, but after each death, you start at the beginning and have to run back to where you were, and that’s really not enjoyable. I was able to reach one checkpoint, but I only had one life at that point so it was short lived. Literally.
Is That a Friendly Beep?
Colony Arena Online has a lot going on. There are lights everywhere, controls that I never used, and sounds that I still don’t know the meaning of. One thing I know for sure, if you see a little blue ball roll up to you, you need to turn and run.
The game can definitely be a little overwhelming. Which I guess is better than underwhelming, but I had a few moments where I wasn’t sure if my robot friend was going to explode or ascend. He didn’t do either. He instead collected a charge. Which is how you are able to refill your ammo. And I assume your shield as well. Oh yeah, did I mention you have a shield? If it seems like I forgot, that’s because I did.
You also have a shockwave that I forgot to use. And also don’t know how to use. You can also make barricades rise out of the ground. Anywhere. There are so many controls for this game, that I mainly just stuck to moving, shooting, and of course learning that you can roll. Because who doesn’t love a classic Link style roll? I later learned that if you jump and then roll while in the air, it is a much quicker way to traverse the planet.
Updates
The Steam store page for Colony Arena Online claims that there are going to be updates somewhere down the road. New maps and features, that supposedly will all be free. Controller support would be a huge win for me, because somehow I’m worse at aiming with a mouse than I am a joystick.
Looking back on my experience, I will say, this game is actually kind of fun. And if you can find 3 friends with $2 to spare, or if you have $6 and are feeling generous, I can totally see this being a fun game to goof off and mindlessly kill some robot rebels. I might have to actually talk some friends into that to see how much weight that statement holds, so I’ll get back to you on that. Or if you decide to pick this game up, and need someone to play with, then let me know!
New Feature!
And finally, new this week, and hopefully something I can continue doing in the future, is a gameplay video. Now I will say, this video is a little rough, and probably about 5 minutes too long, but I was determined to at least finish a level. Spoiler alert, I did not. There is zero editing, which I’m probably going to regret later, but it was the easiest way for me to put this out there. Also, at the 1:56 mark, one of my dogs decides she wants to be part of the video. It is not in fact an in game robot dog companion, though that would be a welcome addition. Let me know what you think, and if videos are something you’d like to see more of…HIT THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!