One of the most annoying things about the 6th gen consoles was the PS2. It had great first party releases and some big 3rd party exclusives, but there were a few issues which caused people to hate whole series. There were several highly rated 3rd party games that had very meh to bad ports.

Today we’re looking at Metal Arms: Glitch in the System. I had seen it on many hidden gems lists and at game stores. I played the PS2 version and just thought it was ok. There was input lag on the movement and the game looked meh.

I looked at another hidden gem video about the game and found how to play it. The GameCube version is better and someone made a mod porting the higher quality Xbox textures via emulator. I tried and it felt so much better that I really enjoyed it.

The games writing is tongue and cheek with some voices from The Simpsons. You play a robot named Glitch who was found in pieces and rebuilt. He is tasked with salvaging desperate situations in the Mechs fight against the other robots.

The gameplay is good and can be pretty hard. There’s a big variety of enemies and weapons. There the big tank robots, flying ones with lasers, small guys with rockets, small guys with exploding arrows, the typical foot soldiers with SMGs and turrets. There also the abominations that you shoot, they apart and rebuild themselves. These can be tough, they will spam you with quick Flood-like melee attacks. The regular enemies can also have shields too. Plus there’s turrets and flying ships.

To kill them you need a variety  of weapons and you need to be strategic with them. One gripe I have is the gun at the beginning they give you a weak laser. There’s rockets, exploding arrows, flamethrower, SMGs, ARs,  and different types of grenades like frags, EMPs and ones that make enemies fight on your side. These can all be upgraded with money called washers, or some can be found in the levels. There’s another gun that you can take control of enemies but you have to get behind and they can’t see you.

This game has a lot of missions and a lot of variety. You start at a secret robot base, go inside your planet, a coliseum, a cyberpunk-esque city and space.  The vehicle sections were one of my biggest gripes with this game. The can be hard and the don’t really handle that good. It can get frustrating when you turn too sharply and get stuck on something because the controls are very sensitive.

They’re regular missions that can get frustrating or you don’t know what to do. But with the variety of weapons and gadgets, your enticed to come back with new tactics or check a walkthrough.

This game takes some of ideas from Halo with its own spin. If you’re interested in playing it get the GameCube version and the Xbox textures. You also need to enable Hybrid Ubershaders. Don’t sit online saying this needs a remaster that’s lame.