Naturally, you've got to be skeptical. Any RC toy under $100 has to be of questionable quality. Plus, the Invasion robots claim to let you control multiple robots with the same controllers... and there's this whole weird bar code scanning element. This could be very very bad.

But it's not as lousy as it could be (although I haven't tested out the multi-bot angle yet.) The RC is fine, within a limited range. The robots themselves are pretty cool looking... but - as the packaging is free in pointing out - they could certainly look cooler if you buy additional plastic weapon and armor kits.

In preparation for buying my Rumble Robots (King El Smasho and King Slugnut, if you must know), I did some half-assed web research. Take it from me: Don't let anybody tell you that there's a Collectible Card Game attached to Rumble Robots. Although they sell extra bar code cards in starter boxes and booster packs (just like Pokemon, so Grandma will be easily fooled.)... don't fall for it. There's not even rules for any kind of game included in the "starter" box. They're purely a tool for increasing your robot's abilities. This is both interesting and aggravating. On one hand, you get to define your robot's attributes before each battle by selecting specific cards - fairly strategic, I suppose. On Hand Number Two, once you have all the high level cards, your robot's powers are so inflated that any opponent who didn't buy a lot of cards might as well put his RR on the top shelf with the Tamagotchis. And it doesn't help that card-swiping can get frustrating if you don't get the technique down. Kids, make Daddy do your scanning. (Aside: these cards are going to get beat up from all the scanning and re-scanning, so I'd suggest sleeving them.)

One way to clean this fault up is to agree to a numerical limit before scanning. You can only scan three power cards (of values 1 to 5), so limiting the total points to 10 or 12 makes it fair. Alternately, I worked out a quick drafting card game that deals out cards randomly, which is nice for an even distribution of the special cards (Superpowers and Repair cards.)

An incredible annoyance is that you have to re-scan before every match. Sure, this makes for a sideboard-like style, but I'd rather have the option to start a new battle without having to rescan my cards.

Also, the poor robots have no way of knowing when they've won. Given all the pre-battle trash talk, it's pretty lame that they have no celebratory audio samples. (Future versions ought to have PC compatibility, so you could record your own voice tracks and download new abilities.)

My biggest complaint is that the voices are a pair of sad ethnic stereotypes; the kind of stuff I thought the US toy industry was past by now. Slugnut calls himself "the crusha from Russia" and speaks in a thick slavic accent. El Smasho is even worse: he's the very aural equivalent of an overdone Taco Bell Chihuahua parody. I'm pretty disgusted hearing a spanish accent used for comic effect in a friggin' kids toy. I'm just glad they didn't have the other one call Smasho a s**c.

Still, this is the kind of shit I dreamed of as a kid. Given the reasonable pricing ($30 for the top-of-the-line model), the technical weaknesses are acceptable. I'll be buying the rest of the army soon. I'm sure more embarrassing ethnic slurs await.