Format: 360
Release: Out now
Publisher: Sega
Developer: AM2

As with Sega’s breezy approach to racing cars in Outrun 2, so too does its take on one-on-one, arena-based mech 'em ups gleefully buck convention. The obsessive stat porn usually attached to Japan’s bipedal combat machines is nowhere to be found here. Neither are the drab, military textures of modern warfare. Oratorio Tangram’s Virtuaroids are instead painted in vibrant pinks and highlighter pen greens; these are exuberant robots of the virtual future, powered by Dreamcast backpacks, indifferent to the vagaries of fictional realism, happy to glory in hyper-speed, videogame fantasy.

In terms of genre too, the game is unlike its closest peers. To look at it’s a 3D robot combat game but in the hands, which largely guide movement along fixed length vectors, the reality is closer to Virtua Fighter. You’re reflexively reading and countering your opponent’s moves, the sheer speed of play defying the Virtuaroids’ hulking mass. The structure is also like that of a fighter: you progress through a series of one-on-one bouts, facing off against opponents of varying style, power, range and speed, with the aim of depleting their health bar before they empty yours.

A lock on system ensures that, as long as your opponent is within your field of vision, your weapons will track it automatically, placing the emphasis on maintaining a sightline at all times, while simultaneously trying to escape their view. Jumping automatically re-centres your view on your opponent, a move that allows you to immediately fire off a weapon. Close the distance between the two Virtuaroids and melee attacks can be combined with dash attacks in an exciting tussle of beam swords and firework particle effects.

You’ll string together these building block interactions at a dizzying rate, the pace of play necessarily frantic and engaged. Suffer too many time outs during single player bouts and an overpowered punishment Virtuaroid will be deployed to teach you a lesson. In fact, the speed was heightened in Virtual On’s final arcade iteration, known affectionately by its build version ‘5.66’, upon which this XBLA port is based. As such, series fans have been nervous about how the controls would work on the Xbox 360. Explicitly designed around twin-directional control (a more precise spin on Katamari Damacy’s model) most of the game’s advanced combat techniques are flat out impossible to input on the Xbox pad, even when using the digital D-pad and face button as the control set-up.

Though such issues do a lot to scupper expert play, it’s clear that Sega intends this version to be the definitive console port of the game, from the fully customisable button configurations to system link play, online play and the ability to upload and download replays of top matches. There are rumours of a forthcoming peripheral, similar to the one the Saturn and Dreamcast ports received. However, until then the game will be spoiled for those who are interested in high level play. Meanwhile, for beginners and intermediate level players, Oratorio Tangram presents an unmatched experience, a bright and energetic burst of fantasy combat, still quite unlike anything else in videogames. [7]