Clone Drone in the Danger Zone

Genre: Third-Person Action

Players: 1-5 Co-Op (Online), 2-15 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

(Note: This review has been directly sponsored by a kind donation from u/punkgeek. Thanks again for your generous contribution!)

Clone Drone in the Danger Zone (from this point in the review referred to simply as “Clone Drone” for brevity’s sake) is a game that has been available to play in Steam Early Access for many years now, but only in 2021 did it finally officially see release, not just on PC, but on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch as well. However, even prior to release, the Steam Early Access made for a huge groundswell of buzz for this game, with the overwhelming majority of players who got their hands on the game prior to launch giving it rave user reviews.

At least on the surface, it may not be easy to see why. Clone Drone looks like an extremely simplistic Action game, with boxy, Minecraft-esque visuals that lack Minecraft’s expansive, destructible world, and Clone Drone’s combat seems like an experimental physics system turned into gameplay, with the premise here being that both players’ and enemies’ attacks chop off enemy body parts where they strike, allowing players to maim enemies by clipping a limb, or get a kill in a single strike by striking the head or torso. To make these attacks, players can use horizontal and vertical melee attacks, or attack from afar using a bow. There’s more to the combat system than this, but for the most part, this feels like a game that was almost tossed together by accident, with this Jerry-rigged mix of gameplay elements built upon when its creators felt like they were on to something.

The thing is, despite how nearly every element of this game feels amateurish… it actually kinda’ works.

Okay, let me back up a second. The premise of Clone Drone is that a space armada of robots has been attacking human colonies, capturing their populace, downloading their consciousnesses into robots and then forcing them to compete in gladiatorial combat, apparently for the robots’ amusement. Most of the gameplay in this game takes place in this gladiatorial arena, with players fending off hordes of different kinds of enemy robots, most of whom are equipped with the same weapons and skills you have access to.

The start of the campaign mode and most of the other game modes here are set up a little like a Roguelike, with players fighting in an arena until all enemies are down, and then returning to an upgrade room to choose an ability to spend your newly-earned upgrade point on. Reinforcing this feeling of the game being like a Roguelike is the game’s “one hit kill” mechanics, and with these deaths ending your run unless you used an upgrade point to purchase a “clone” (an extra life). As players progress, they will have to make the difficult choice whether to empower one of their core abilities, or get insurance in the form of a clone.

The abilities players have seem extremely rudimentary, but they’re not without their nuance. In addition to basic sword and bow attacks, players can opt to upgrade their energy to dash and fire the bow more often, they can add a flame to their sword to make attacks that would only wound become fatal, they can buy a jetpack to make their dash more effective, a kick to knock down particularly troublesome enemies… there’s actually a fair amount to choose from. And while the way players and enemies swing swords is… well, laughably robotic… it still makes for a bit of strategy where players may prefer to use horizontal or vertical strikes depending on the situation, and reading that situation in the moment is one of the skills that’s important to be successful. Oh, and for those wondering, the Nintendo Switch version of the game does allow players to make use of gyroscopic motion controls when aiming the bow and arrow, which is a nice feature.

The pattern of arena fight, upgrade, arena fight, upgrade is how the game’s campaign mode starts out… but without spoiling too much let’s just say that players who manage to progress far enough will find that this is a game that’s not afraid to upend the status quo and do something different, and what at first seemed like a simple repetitive loop turns out to be a clever mix of an evolution of the game’s core gameplay and a surprisingly compelling story.

Speaking of that story, one of the few elements of this game that truly shines right from the start is the hilarious writing for the robotic commentators discussing the battles in the arena, naturally delivered in the familiar tones of a text-to-speech automated script. Their quips are wonderfully dry comments like “It appears this human fears death. Typical.” and brief back-and-forth conversations like “This human fights almost as good as a robot” “But not as good as a robot.” “No. Not as good as a robot”. Fans of the killbot stuff from the TV show Futurama will feel right at home with this sort of writing.

However, while the story mode is oddly compelling, one of the main draws of this game is its online multiplayer content, and this game really goes the full mile to ensure that this element of the game delivers… though not without its flaws. Suffice it to say, advancing through the game’s endless mode or themed challenges with a friend is fantastic fun, and doing so with a group of strangers online is nearly as fun. And one of this game’s great features is fully-implemented cross-platform play allowing players on all platforms to play together. Playing with an upgrade path with an archery focus while a friend on PC focused on melee made for some great cooperative moments, and also some nail-biting moments as my friend engaged in a deadly melee battle that I was hesitant to assist in for fear of accidentally hitting them with my attacks (though players who opt to can choose to start a multiplayer game without friendly fire).

This is both done well and poorly, I have to say. On the one hand, joining a friend online is as easy as inputting a four-digit room code regardless of what platform they’re playing on, and joining a random group online is as simple as selecting the option to join a random game. During combat, this mostly works exceptionally well, without noticeable lag… however, this game seems to run into some sort of extreme lag or slowdown problem in-between game rounds, and this is exacerbated by multiplayer play. This isn’t just the Nintendo Switch version of the game, though – I encountered the exact same problem on the PC version.

In fact, overall, this game’s performance is somewhat spotty, with all sorts of slowdown issues throughout, which is particularly odd given just how unimpressive the game’s visuals are. And while I’m talking about issues, I will say that some of this game’s “boss” characters don’t really make it clear how to take them down, making for frustrating battles that have you delivering blow after blow to no effect.

One of this game’s major issues overall is its wildly fluctuating difficulty levels, with some parts of the game being exceedingly hard, followed super-easy parts, and then occasionally infuriatingly tough areas again, without there seeming to be much rhyme or reason. This is in part because enemy friendly fire becomes more pronounced the more enemies there are, meaning that levels with a crowd of enemies can often more or less take care of themselves for you.

In the end, I get the feeling that Clone Drone is an experiment that became a great game almost by accident. This really shouldn’t work, so much about this game feels amateurish and poorly put-together. The graphics are simple and the performance is just bad. And I’m sure some players will be turned off by the overall “janky” nature of the game, or its at-times unforgiving “one hit kill” central mechanic. Yet despite this, it’s still a surprisingly fun game to play, and a fantastic time in co-op with a friend online, regardless of what platform they’re playing on. I encourage you to try to look past this game’s flaws, because if you can, you’ll find this to be a highly-enjoyable game.

tl;dr – Clone Drone in the Danger Zone is a Third-Person Action game that has players fighting robots in gladiatorial combat with one hit kill mechanics. This game looks and plays somewhat amateurish in its design, yet despite itself it’s still surprisingly fun to play, especially in co-op (with cross-platform play, even), and has hidden depths hidden under its unimpressive exterior and performance issues. If you can look past those issues, you’ll find Clone Drone to be an Action game with some compelling gameplay that will keep you coming back for just “one more run”.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2021 Game Awards:

Runner-Up – Best Multiplayer, Funniest Game, Best Voice Acting, Best Action Game

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