While Nintendo releases much of its games worldwide, its Custom Robo series has remained in Japan, much to the chagrin of American gamers who missed out on the 2 N64 games. However, Nintendo's finally submitted to the pressure, and they've crafted an entirely new adventure for the GameCube, and it already looks like a quality multi-player experience.

Custom Robo is a battle game where players create their own mechs using more than 200 parts and weapons and obliterate one another in arenas (called Holosseums.), the goal being to win, but also, to salvage parts from fallen foes and add them to your robot. Up to four players can destroy each other, and the game contains all of the action in a single screen, so you won't have to worry about squinting to see your tiny box like in those split screen games, and it's a good thing you won't, because Custom Robo is a very impressive looking game. The Holosseum graphics are gorgeous, featuring lava, ice, and vector-like environments, and the detail on the mechs is excellent. When you factor in the crazy explosions, it looks like Custom Robo may be one of the best multiplayer experiences on the Cube.

But wait! Just because the game's got a solid 1-4 player mode doesn't mean there's nothing for those of you who game alone. Custom Robo has a story...sort of. It's actually kind of unimaginative. In the not too distant future, and on an unnamed planet, the Custom Robos are being manipulated to cause crime by an evil organization known as the Commanders. As a mysterious hero, you set out to take down the Commanders as a part of the Steel Hearts Bounty Hunter Squad using Custom Robos of your own, and along the way, you'll engage the enemy in assorted battle arenas (30) with the option of upgrading your mech using lost parts.

The constant upgrading makes Custom Robo an RPG of sorts. What attracts me to it is the insane level of customization. It's not some lame create-a-robot where you can only select from several different patterns. There are 50 different guns, 30 bombs, and 30 robo models. Not all of them are readily available, so you may have to do some searching in seedy locales such as gambling rooms, but the effort should be worth it. You can literally customize even the tiniest of parts, which should allow for some very unique designs.

After checking out a demo (Available at most GameCube kiosks at the mall.), I came away impressed, but not with the impulse to buy the game, the reason being that it feels all too familiar. Custom Robo is a hybrid of Capcom's Power Stone and Sega's Virtual On series. The action's contained in an arena (Single screen.), but instead of pirates and ninjas, you're robots (Ala Virtual On.). I was only able to play a one-on-one battle, so I'm sure four players will be a more intense experience, but I'm not sure whether this one will spin around in your Cubes for very long, especially since this is yet another game that would've been great online, but as we all know, Nintendo has little to no online plans for their system.

While Custom Robo's multiplayer component looks great, I'm very concerned about the game's single player campaign. With so little attention being given to the story, it looks like all we're going to do is battle hop until we reach the same boss at the end, and if that's the case, Custom Robo won't fair much better than Capcom's Gotcha Force. However, all soon-to-be-released games deserve their shot, and I'll reserve my final opinion until I give Nintendo's robot battle game a test drive this spring.