I don’t ask for much in life, but if you gave me the option I’d probably ask for robots and swords. Probably some other stuff as well  (like world peace and an end to hunger), but mainly robots and swords.

Rather conveniently, Doborog Games’ Clone Drone in the Danger Zone offers both; a third person arena-combat game featuring human minds in robot bodies facing off against robot minds in equally robotic bodies.

You are an ex-human, one who has been placed inside the shell of a combat robot and dropped unceremoniously into a gladiatorial arena, where for the amusement (or at least acknowledgement) of the robotic crowd, you are forced to battle to the death against a rabble of electronic opponents.

Combat is swift and brutal. Both you and your adversaries are modelled in voxels whichcan be surgically dismantled, making every encounter a tense and vicious affair. Slice off an opponent’s leg, and he’ll hop slowly after you. Lop off an arm and reduce his combat effectiveness. Or just go for the head, whatever works for you. Within minutes of playing I’d developed my own signature feint followed by a left handed swipe that worked well until I got shot in the face by an archer.

With glowing swords and dismemberment, I can’t help but be reminded of the hours I spent with Jedi Academy. But where Lucasarts brought the serious and dramatic, Clone Drone in the Danger Zone instead embraces the comedy potential offered by a load of robots fighting to the death.

The game features commentary from professional robots Commentatron and Analysis-Bot, who are always on hand to provide humorous insights and comments about your inevitable death. With a huge number of dead-pan lines that could be taken straight from Futurama or the lyrics of the Flight of the Conchords’ song The Humans Are Dead,  I found myself returning to the game again and again just to hear what else they had to say.

Clone Drone in the Danger Zone is still in its early stages, but is already incredibly fun to play. An endless mode has been confirmed by developer Erik Rydeman, and when it drops towards the end of this month will probably end up taking a large swathe of my evenings for a long time to come.