Do you know what I miss? Cartoony games with silly titles and a great sense of humour. Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids comes from developer Snapshot Games and publisher Arc Games. Could this be the title that takes me back to an era that I genuinely miss?

“An action-strategy game where you gather Brainium, build a base, and command your army of bots to defeat the freaky Brains-in-Jars aliens. Lead from the front with your hero, Chip or Clawz, or both in co-op. Look out for ejected alien brains, you can squish ‘em!”

Before I get into this review, I just want to highlight that developer, Snapshot Games is headed up by Julian Gollop. if you don’t know who Julian is, then you need get hold of the original X-Com games. I fucking love those first two X-Coms, the originals, not the remakes from a few years back. Anyway, with someone as experienced and renowned as Julian in the CEO seat, I was expecting great things from Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids.

I’m going to make a comparison here that makes no sense, but makes a ton of sense at the same time. Back in the good old days of the Amiga, I used to play the port of an arcade game called Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. It was this co-op, zany shooter with humour and a title that sounded like a 1950s Sci-fi B-movie. While the gameplay is different, Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids very much put me in mind of Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. Escape… was an all-out shooter, while Chip ‘n Clawz does have shooter mechanics, it leans heavily into RTS territory… and it has a title that sounds like a 1950s Sci-fi B-movie.

Chip, the human hero is joined by he faithful robot cat, Calwz. When the Brainioids invade (a race of alien beings), it is up to Chip and Clawz to build an army of robots and fight back. That’s ‘yer basic story. Brainium is the game’s form of “currency” that you’ll have to mine and then use to build buildings that will then generate the robots that you’ll need to fight back against the dastardly Brainioids.

What you get with Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids is a base-building RTS mushed together with a third-person shooter. You can control both Chip or Clawz in single player, or team with with a chum and play as both with some co-op action. Both characters play pretty much the same and both can carry out the same basic tasks (build buildings, direct robots), but they do have a couple of unique skills. Chip has the ability to buff buildings and the robots, as well as having access to a nifty hoverbike. Clawz can repair buildings and robots, and he can use a jetpack thing that lets him move around faster and double jump.

The basic goal of each level is to take out the Brainioids HQ, while the Brainioids are trying to do exactly that to you. Levels can become a bit of a tug-of-war as you jostle for power. This is where the S bit of the RTS comes in. The buildings you build and the robots you create all have different attributes and you need to pick what to build and when carefully. Aside your usual starting minions of miners (to bring in that much needed Brainium), you’ll also have access to gunners, flying robots, artillery, defence cannons and more. The same goes for those pesky Brainioids as they too have a decent selection of hardware to use against you.

Chip ‘n Clawz has a nice difficulty curve that introduces you to the basics. You’ll glide through the first four or five levels without much of an issue. But things get much more challenging in later levels as the game begins to chuck in numerus elements that keep the level feeling fresh and new obstacles for you to overcome. Each level has a star grading system and the better you do, the more starts you earn (though you can only get the last star by finishing the levels on hard). Each level also comes with three specific goals to reach, finish under a certain time, defend a specific building and more.

There’s always something to do and each level is semi-open world so you can try different strategies and even find some collectables too. There are comic books to discover and blueprints that can be used to upgrade your hardware. On top of that, there are bonus challenge levels that step away from the main story, but test your RTS skills. There are some really creative boss fights and several levels dip their toes into the puzzle pool to add another layer to the gameplay. Honestly, Chip ‘n Clawz is quite a packed game in terms of gameplay and variety. It also has a brilliant sense of humour that had me laughing quite a fair bit. Just wait until you get to hear the aliens talking about “pearl necklaces” and massively misunderstanding what they are.

Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids will set you back around £25 and is available now for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. I enjoyed this one so much. It really did take me back to playing Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters on the Amiga. I think it’s the whole co-op, funny, cartoon-like, 1950s Sci-fi vibe. With a beautifully balanced difficulty curve, varied gameplay, fun challenges and a very funny sense of humour, Chip ‘n Clawz has genuinely been a lot of fun to playthrough. I’m just trying to get maximum stars and attempting to finish all the levels on hard now.