Earth, 1981.  All of mankind’s attempts to leave earth’s orbit have met with failure.  It seems that anything organic that leaves orbit dies, leading to the discovery of lethal and unavoidable “nectar” radiation that exists in space.  A protective field that circles the globe is dubbed the “Nectar Barrier,” and any space exploration is scrapped.  Obviously life cannot exist out of orbit, right?

You are a 17-year-old school kid living in Senjo, Japan, a relatively quiet little city, when all hell breaks loose.  Giant robots from space are taking a tour of cities around the world, and they seem to have a special place in their metal heart for wrecking yours.  As fortune would have it, you have access to a remote-controlled towering mass of “whoop ass”!  What amazing luck!  It’s every kid’s dream come true! 

R.A.D. is just that:  a trip back into a time when old-school Japanese giant robots were all the rage.  (Some would contend that they still are . . .)  Hearkening back to the days when my friends and I played with Transformers and Go-bots in the sandbox, the robots have a very old-fashioned look to them, as if they were freshly ripped from the cardboard and plastic package--straight from the toy store.  The hero robots are called Meganites, and the invading space robots are dubbed the Volgara.

The story is told mainly in a sort of still-frame fashion, as if someone were trying to make a movie with a digital camera.  Unfortunately instead of an anime-style or rendered movie, we get a cartoon running at one frame every five or ten seconds.  This is not even enough to provide mouth movements or anything else to make you want to sit through the often-long interludes.  With such an impressive anime character designer as Toshihiro Kawamoto (Cowboy Bebop, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083) onboard, it’s disappointing that only still images were created to attempt to do justice to his obviously quality design. 

To be fair, the poor story animation and voice acting may have very well been done purposefully, in the style of the good old Japanese cartoons.  If so, it might have been better to have lips actually move somewhat, to show that it wasn’t just plain laziness.  Fortunately, when it ceases to amuse you, there is a fast-forward button, and it doesn’t really detract much from the enjoyment of the game.

The rest of the story is presented in either “news footage”, which is actually on-the-fly rendered robot action, or as you control your chosen youth, in the form of narrated text bubbles.

When you are done getting motivated and are actually ready to pound some robot, you will find that the game provides an amazingly fresh variation on giant mech combat.   This difference is quite literally your perspective, as everything you observe is from the viewpoint of a tiny human.  You begin a stage by placing yourself in a (hopefully) safe location where you can see to navigate your robot toward the enemy.  Once in place, pressing the select button will give you a view of your robot for your chosen vantage point.  Because of the perspective, the robot seems enormous, and it’s every footstep shakes the ground with a vibration you can feel.

Most of your time will actually be spent maneuvering your Meganite in an attempt to destroy the Volgara sent your way.  So engrossing is this struggle to gain control that I often found myself nearly killed when a hulking mass of robot landed on or completely destroyed a building that my fragile “human camera” was perched on.  While these mishaps can be startling, the game is fairly forgiving, providing humans with a rather amazing resilience to being crushed or dropped by wreckage and robots.  Most of the time I found it quite hilarious-- the irony of the very human supposedly controlling the hero robot punching a giant enemy right onto his unprotected self.

Graphically, this game excels in the right areas.  Robots actually look impressive, well modeled and drawn, and are quite a sight on a nice set using component cables.  Buildings are reasonably drab and simply drawn, but they are really just minor obstacles in your path of destruction, and soon to be destroyed anyway.  Human characters are not especially detailed, and do tend to walk a bit funny.  My recommendation is:  just step on them.  It’s fun, they will bounce up into the air, unreasonable amounts of blood will spray, and you will forget their funny walk altogether.

Depending on the amount of scenery you destroy or allow to be destroyed, you will earn money from the government and other various agencies that appreciate not being obliterated.  Also, certain plot characters are sometimes placed in harm’s way.  Saving them keeps the story happy, while letting them die is punished somewhat.  Usually, you will want to do the right thing, as money is used to purchase new moves and upgrades for your Meganite.

All in all, this is a fine title with plenty for fans of the genre and newcomers alike to enjoy.  With their recent merger with Squaresoft, we can only expect even greater accomplishments from Enix in the future.