DESCRIPTION

In the role of wayward robot named D-Tritus, players visit the asteroid space station Chimera, a place diversely populated by other automatons and full of both danger and opportunity. Futuristic, flying vehicles are a focus of the game, and D-Tritus will win, build, borrow, and steal progressively faster, more powerful rides as he moves through the adventure. Although it would be unfair to dub this game "Grand Theft Spaceship," another essential element of Scrapland concerns the relatively random events that emerge, independent of the main narrative, in its large, freely roamed environments.

Similar to Rockstar's pièce de résistance, Scrapland allows players not only to follow its story arc through one main mission to the next, but also to simply wander around the space station and find random races, fights, and other "pick-up" escapades. Somewhere between this open-ended play and the scripted story missions are a number of RPG-style side challenges, which can be attempted for more specific rewards such as cash or new vehicle designs. The robot hero can also visit arenas, where sanctioned races and deathmatch battles are held.

There's also plenty for D-Tritus to do when he's not in the cockpit of his latest ride, however. Many missions have him on foot, infiltrating different buildings to obtain information and loot, or perhaps for more sinister purposes. D-Tritus can take on the body of another robot — either co-opting another character he's met or changing his appearance by choosing new parts from a menu. Not only does this allow him to move around incognito, but it also lets him adjust his abilities. He might take over a character who's good at jumping to conquer a platform challenge, for example, and then switch to a character who's good at shooting for a combat sequence. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide