American McGee Presents Scrapland for Xbox Reviews by Gamers

From the moment the opening cinematic opened up showing Looney Toon-like robots scampering around their daily lives, I knew I'd found a nice little niche in American McGee's brain. Unfortunately, his efforts post-Alice have been fairly subpar, and Scrapland is no exception. There are many great ideas and new approaches to puzzles here, and that's wonderful. The writing is fairly OK, going as far as being good and funny in some places. And I'd definitely recommend this as a nice, family friendly game that anyone can enjoy...

...except that the racing minigames are very, very broken. This wouldn't be such a big deal, but the game forces you to play them in many places. The combat is alright, the stealth elements are decent, the city is sprawling and amazing for a last gen game - but then you have to fail a racing minigame twenty times to continue the story, and its just not worth the time or effort.

Scrapland deserves its place in the pile of broken masterpieces. Give this one a pass and move on with your life.

D-Tritus just landed on Scrapland and got the one job no one else wanted: reporter. And wouldn't you know it, local officials are getting killed by a mysterious creature and there's a big conspiracy behind the whole thing. Perfect timing...
There's been lots of mixed feeling over Scrapland and I kind of understand that after having played through the game. Some things work, other things don't.
What works is the world. If American McGee deserves credit for anything, it's the scope of this world. You'll be weaving in and out of neon signs and steam pipes with your ship in no time. It's just a wonderful landscape to see as you play through the story.
What also works are the unique concepts introduced in the game. D-Tritus can turn into any robot and each robot has unique abilities. Some can access special areas or talk with confidential sources. You can also create and modify ships as you unlock and collect new ship and engine plans. These are really the things that work best.
The game is basically split between on-foot sections (where you talk to robots, find blueprints and complete some interior missions) and ship missions (where you race and fight). The ship sections work well enough, which is good because the majority of the game takes place in a ship. But the open landscape means you'll get hung up on walls, turned around by differing elevations and face the dreaded "wonky camera". The on-foot section is utilitarian but fine, except for the combat, which is limited to whatever ability you have and nothing else. This aspect of the game could have been greatly expanded.
This game gets very hard, but in a cheap way where you get swarmed by enemies. Many mistakes are made because of technical errors as well.
Still, I felt compelled to keep playing. The gameplay could have been better, the story richer and the mechanics deeper, but the game has an endearing quality that might keep you playing for the 13 hours or so that it lasts.