Gearbits is a blast from the past futuristic mecha action title that mixes Virtual On and EDF and manages create a seriously fun video game that offers a lot in a small package. This little indie game from Quackpond Games isn’t going to change the world, heck, it’s not even the best mecha game on the market, but for its short runtime it provides a whole lot of fun.
Set on a colony on the frontier of space, Gearbits has you piloting a GB in defense of said colony. Your small group of hotshot frontier pilots try to keep the peace from roving bandits, but recently a new threat has arisen. A threat so large that it has taken over the entire planet and forced the colony onto its backfoot. You make a desperate call for military aid and must hold out against an unknown swarm species of creatures and bandits alike in an attempt to take back control of the colony.
In order to save the people, you pilot a GB mecha that you can outfit however you see fit. Each GB has three slots in which you can equip various weapons to take into battle. You unlock new weapons and new GB units after completing missions and making purchases for them in the shop. Each GB has different stats and certain abilities so finding one that you like is a lot of fun. One might be really slow but have huge amounts of armor or built in weapon, while another might be incredibly fast and nimble with having paper thin armor and assorted countermeasure. You need to weigh your options before heading into battle and select the best GB and loadout for each mission.
Dealing with massive swarms might require more close-quarter combat at times with shotguns and auto rifles and a GB with a laser blade to make space, while facing enemy GB units might need you to create space and use long range and homing weapons, especially when facing large numbers of them. Playing around with the loadouts is a lot of fun and pairing them up with a GB you like is a blast. Some missions will have you attacking all out like an EDF game while other missions see you playing escort and serving on protection duty. The game flows really well between these Virtual On to EDF gameplay sections and having support GB helping you on missions means that a lot is happening all at once.
For its parts, Gearbits isn’t a long affair and will take you only a handful of hours to complete, especially for gamers experienced in the genre. That said, there is a lot to accomplish and have you coming back for as the game features an achievement system and a wave mode to have fun in and experiment with the 10 included mecha and loadouts. If you love playing around with build that you can run in combat, then this is the game for you and something important as certain weapons affect different enemies in different ways. Still, this game could have been served well with some online combat to really cut your teeth on.
Graphically, the 90s mecha nature of the game calls to mind Virtual On and Shogo Mobile Armor Division. It’s not going to blow you away, but the style means that you can play around with simple polygons and still achieve some really nice visuals for the GB themselves. Add in the fact that terrain and other non-GB units are all textured in this PS1 pixel style, and you have a game with a distinct style while filling you with nostalgia. This is made all the more impressive when you realize that this is mostly a single developer affair from what I’ve gathered. If this game out in the 90s it would have had a large team behind it and be released by Sega. We sure have come a long way!
The story is also interesting and features some twists and turns, especially when the military show up to “save the day” and end up seeing you as more of a nuisance than an ally. You get bits of story in the briefings before each mission and through several cut-scenes that use the engine to great effect. You can also visit the lounge in-between missions much like you could in the old Wing Commander games front eh same era to learn a little more about what’s going on as well as get a few tips and tricks to use in combat.
All that praise aside, and I have a lot for Gearbits, the game does have a couple of issues. There is a lot of dialogue that is presented and there are a couple of times where the grammar has issues that a good spellcheck could have fixed. There are gameplay issues too, as you can sometimes get stuck objects from time to time, and I did somehow manage to spawn in different area than where I should have been. On occasion there are also some visual hiccups when a lot is happening on screen. These are all fairly minor issues that could be fixed with a future patch.
I love nearly everything about Gearbits and I really hope that the team behind it see a good number of sales as I want more of this exact type of game. Where something like Armored Core 6 is gorgeous and hard-as-nails, Gearbits takes the more casual arcade approach and has, at least to me, a much nicer 90s retro style that has become iconic in mecha culture. It just goes to show that we really don’t need to make Mecha colorful again and not copy the gritty CoD inspiration more modern takes in the genre have used.
Pick up Gearbits the first chance you get. I can promise you it will be the best $10 you’ll spend this new on a new video game. Now, we can only hope to see more and have Gearbits turned into a series and perhaps even ported to modern consoles to reach a wider audience in some sort of limited physical release.
Gearbits mashes Virtual On and EDF together to create the arcade action mecha game that we’ve waited years for
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