Before you even play it, you can intuit a whole lot about the upcoming action-strategy game Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids, just by its absolutely ridiculous name alone. Well, I’m pleased to report that after spending several hours with it, it’s exactly as goofy and over-the-top as the title suggests. This cartoonish co-op adventure gives off a distinct Saturday-morning cartoon vibe with its bright colors, absurd gags, and dorky aliens with wacky voices, and blends 3rd-person action with real-time strategy elements that have really piqued my interest. But don’t be fooled by its family friendly ornamentation! As one might expect from a strategy game with XCOM creator Julian Gollop at the helm, this thing already started to show just how deceptively challenging it can be during my short time with it, which has left me eager to see more.
Chip ‘n Clawz vs. The Brainioids threw me right into the middle of the action without much context behind its completely bonkers premise – and I was extremely okay with that. I mean, what’s not to get about a reckless human named Chip and a robot kitten named Clawz, fighting against an alien race of brains inside jars called the Brainioids? My co-op friend and I worked our way through increasingly tricky levels filled with relentless alien baddies sent to kill us by someone named General Blobbius (who is not a military general, but the general manager of the Brainioids corporation, because of course he is). If you couldn’t tell already, Chip ‘N Clawz doesn’t exactly take itself seriously, to its enormous benefit. From the brightly-colored levels, dopey looking enemies, and ongoing childish banter, it immediately oozes a kid-friendly charm that lured me into a false sense of security that maybe this would be a pretty easy ride, even though I’d selected hard mode.
Our objective was the same for most levels: battle our way through alien hordes and destroy the mothership at the far end of the map using a legion of robotic minions as our allies. To do so, we have to work together to collect Brainium (the resource used for building) and make decisions about what to spend it on, whether that be the construction of new factories or to power up individual units so they’re more effective in combat. But what started out as a fairly by-the-numbers action game with light RTS components became more complex with each level, until we found ourselves screaming at the screen and at each other in a panic, as we were overwhelmed by the enemy on multiple fronts. That’s because Chip ‘n Clawz definitely knows what it’s doing in the real-time strategy department, and in between the time I spent running around the map bonking aliens about with my melee weapon, I was toggling over to the build and command modes, which allowed me to construct new facilities or order my minions around, respectively.
There are loads of things to consider, as Chip ‘n Clawz slowly introduces new factories to build, units to control, and upgrades to apply to your character’s loadout that modify your abilities. You might, for example, want to take a perk that upgrades all your mining units that gather resources for building so that they’re faster and can withstand more damage from the enemy, or you might instead prefer to just deal more damage with your own melee weapons if you prefer to do more of your own dirty work. Then, during a certain level you might decide to spend your resources on a new artillery depot that supplies your character with a long-range gun, or alternatively you could use that Brainium to construct some stationary turrets to fend off enemies in the area automatically.
As you’re introduced to more and more things to consider, the enemy quickly levels up their tactics as well, which spirals into some surprisingly formidable encounters. One level had me defending our mobile base from enemy attack on three different fronts while controlling dozens of units, while another required me to construct vehicles and jetpacks to reach far away areas in search of resources I needed to win the day. The jokey tone combined with frantic levels overflowing with ruthless alien goons reminded me a lot of the Overcooked series, which uses its seemingly simple mechanics and cheery art to disguise the friendships it will surely ruin in the coming hours. Similarly, Chip ‘n Clawz cleverly disguises its difficulty by being one of the most immediately approachable RTS games I’ve played, luring you into a false sense of security with its third-person action mechanics, but then hilariously kicks you in the face with demanding levels that require you to lean more and more into its complicated RTS mechanics a short time later.
I feel like I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg from this surprisingly deep strategy game, and am looking forward to seeing how crazy things can get in later levels.
