![]() ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, Robbery Bob never seems to get to that point, and therefore you never feel like you could replicate a victory. They don’t work together, they don’t play off each other, they exist only as a standalone obstacle, forgotten as soon as you pass them and move into the next room.Īgain thinking of The Last Rocket, another thing it did so well was instilling the notion that once you figure out the puzzle, you could move through it with nothing but grace and ease. The mechanics themselves are interesting (seeing, for the first time, the way a camera interacts with open doorways was what inspired the review’s opening sentence), but when those mechanics are just dropped into the level without context, they lose almost everything they have going for them. Robbery Rob goes half way in that endeavor. If you’ll forgive those cliche, by the end of The Last Rocket, you had a veritable symphony of mechanics woven together beautifully. He succeeded by not only developing interesting level mechanics, but also by weaving those mechanics together. Inman, like the team at Level Eight, had to stretch a simple mechanic over 60+ levels, while keeping it interesting the whole time. While playing Robbery Bob, I couldn’t help but think about Shaun Inman’s brilliant The Last Rocket ($1.99). Each one of these methods of avoidance are fun, if not a little frustrating the first couple times, but they show their one dimension-ness and tedium by the eighth or ninth time you employ them. The methods for avoiding detection range from mundane (hiding in a planter) to the interesting (leaving doors open to pull patrolling inhabitants off their path). Unluckily, for you they are almost all a pain to use. Luckily for Bob, there are ways to avoid these threats. “Threats" can include dogs, cameras, old ladies, other humans, and, most importantly, the police. Sneaking into a house is easy, the front door almost certainly is unlocked, and once inside Bob has to assess any potential threats to his mission (taking care to avoid them.). Sneaking around the first few houses shows off a lot of the potential for the mechanic, but the game soon devolves into a repetitive room-by-room hunt with obstacles sprinkled haphazardly around. And it is that mechanic that the game lives or, more often, dies on. There is a thin narrative wrapped around these acts, but this isn’t a game about story, it’s a game about the sneaking mechanic. Robbery Bob’s premise is simple: sneak into houses, steal items of value, leave without getting caught. Unfortunately though, those portions are few and far between, and what is in between is, well… Uninteresting. I’m not implying that that is a rarity, but you do rarely see the level of care that portions of Robbery Bob exhibits. Robbery Bob (Free) has moments where you can tell it was designed by someone who cares. ![]()
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