We’ve all been there. You’re in the middle of doing something and in that specific moment it’s equally insignificant and important – maybe you are getting ready to start your car for work, or you’re troubleshooting a tripped breaker, or you are in a close match of Call of Duty and your battery in the controller dies. Sure, it’s typically a mild inconvenience, but at that moment, it’s one of the worst things imaginable. Your heart sinks, you try to think of the quickest and easiest solution to your problem, and while it may not ruin your entire day, we can all agree it’s a major pain in the butt, no matter how small it is, it affects you. Now imagine that feeling on repeat for as long as you can stomach, and you have Tyler: Model 005, the newest release from Reversed Interactive.

The game follows Tyler, a small robot that after years of being dormant is awoken during a storm, only to find his creator’s house in disarray and having little to no memory of the events prior to powering down. The story follows Tyler as he pieces together his fractured memory and seeks out his missing master by exploring his creepy home. This is easier said than done, as the robot is only a few inches tall, making the exploration of the home quite a challenge. Luckily, Tyler is fairly agile, being able to climb, jump, and occasionally (if the controls permit it) wall run akin to Ezio or whoever is in the most recent Assassins’ Creed game. He can hold his own in a fist fight (as well as use a makeshift weapon from time to time), but he’s certain to take huge amounts of fall damage, which is actually good because the platforming in this title is one of the worst, if not the worst example, in recent history. The game’s coup de grace is that Tyler runs on batteries that have the lifespan of a fly who has been fed massive amounts of premium grade crystal meth and they can only be recharged by a light source.

Having thrown a few upgrades into the battery life, I can’t tell you what the out of box lifespan is, but a few levels in I had 27 seconds of power before keeling over and dying, with the last ten seconds or so including an annoying alarm buzzing in addition to Tyler moving like a sloth on melatonin. I noticed on a few occasions, once properly respawning into the game, the battery gauge was already partially depleted, giving me exactly enough time to utter an expletive prior to being greeted with yet another loading screen. This means that from the get go, your top priority is finding each and every light source in the area and turning it on, which again is no easy task, due to the complete and utter failure that is traversal. Invisible ceilings, getting caught on assets that shouldn’t be an issue, and even falling inside of immovable objects are the norm, making exploration a bit of a chore, which is truly a shame because the visuals and atmosphere are stunning. Sure, there are some glitches that occur from time to time, but overall I found the detailed environments to be pleasant on the eye holes.

The dilapidated house reminded me more and more of a 3D version of Little Nightmares as I progressed. With its highly detailed wood grains, amazing lighting and shadows, interactive objects, and a number of collectibles tucked away, the world is ripe for exploration. Sadly, once the lights come on, aside from seeking out the customization items (we’ll circle back around to this later), there isn’t much to do as the basic quests are broken down into simple tasks such as finding X item and inserting it into X location, rinse and repeat. The only challenges in this are due to the ever-failing battery and lackluster controls.

You use a single button to jump, climb, and pretty much do anything that isn’t picking up an item, fighting, or dragging items in the game world. While this works in more polished games, the frustration sets in early (about half way through the tutorial) and only ceases once the individual rooms are lit up like a Christmas tree. The combat is a bit more fluid, although rather bland with Tyler only having basic attacks that boil down to mashing the trigger buttons repeatedly, bashing enemies with bare knuckles or a melee weapon. The only other tools at your disposal are cherry bombs, which work as grenades, and the aforementioned ability to drag certain assets around the game world, which work as makeshift bridges.

While I did not finish the story, I did face off against a decent variety of enemies, but sadly, their attacks all boil down to making a beeline and biting or snapping at you, which can easily be dealt with by climbing onto any object and throwing one of the plentiful cherry bombs in their general direction. Why spiders, ants, worms, and hornet nests (with no hornets nor push back when attacking their nests, which real life experience tells me is a load of crap) would care about attacking a small robot (or climbing the in game assets to evade my tactic outlined above) is beyond me, as Tyler doesn’t appear to be made of fleshy bits or sugar. Rats are also alluded to in the handy post death respawn loading screens, although I never had the joy of running into one.

Outside of the story, the game offers survival missions, which are unlocked in the individual rooms by interacting with a strange device that play out much like any horde mode would. You’ll be tasked with protecting a light source in the middle of the room as waves of enemies make a cut and dry path right for it, often ignoring you. This gives the player something else to do, but it doesn’t really mesh well with the rest of the game, nor do the mechanics feel fully fleshed out. The one positive aspect is that it provides some easy XP (I am unsure if there is an additional reward at the end of the waves, as my battery kept dying before I made it that far), allowing you to grind out the many upgrades the game offers for Tyler.

Death is not a total waste of time in the title, as any collected items or light sources added are retained, as well as earned XP. Since many of the levels feature never ending waves of enemies that will respawn after a set period of time, there is no shortage of ways to earn it either. Collecting the customization items and completing mission objectives also provide huge XP bumps, but the upgrades themselves lack any noticeable changes to gameplay, as least in the early stages. Much like Dead Rising 2, there are combo cards to be unlocked (again, I am unsure how) that provide additional buffs to Tyler, which appear to be based on the visual items he has equipped.

I really wanted to enjoy Tyler: Model 005, but due to the horrible platforming experience in addition to the terribly implemented battery mechanic, which drains quicker than the loading screen that follows it, it’s a more frustrating experience than it should be. Steam reviews seem to imply the PC port is in a much better state, but I would strongly recommend sending the Xbox One version to the dumpster along with your old Duracells.

2 out of 10

Pros:

• Great Visual Representation
• Tons of Customization Options

Cons:

• The Battery Mechanic Is Terrible
• Unpolished Platforming
• Overly Basic Combat

TylerL Model 005 was developed by Reversed Interactive and published by Maximum Games. The game was released on PC and X1 August 21st, 2018 for $9.99. The game was provided for us to review on X1. For more information on Tyler: Model 005, please visit their official site.

 

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