In science fiction, mecha or mechs are giant robots or machines typically depicted as piloted and as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese after shortening the English loanword 'mechanism' or 'mechanical', but the meaning in Japanese is more inclusive, and 'robot' or 'giant robot' is the narrower term.
Mega Man is a Japanese science fiction video game franchise developed and published by Capcom, featuring the eponymous protagonist of the same name. The original game was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, and spawned a franchise that expanded to over 50 games on multiple systems. As of July 2024, the series has sold 42 million units worldwide. Mega Man has been popular among gamers and has been reimagined and evolved as a video game character for over 30 years.
BattleBots is an American robot combat television series and company. The show is an adaptation of the American Robot Wars competitions hosted in the mid–late 1990s by Marc Thorpe, in which competitors design and operate remote-controlled armed and armored machines designed to fight in an arena combat elimination tournament. The same competitions inspired the British TV program Robot Wars, which acquired the name in 1995.
BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The trademark is currently owned by Topps and, for video games, Microsoft Gaming; Catalyst Game Studios licenses the franchise from Topps.
Star Fox is an arcade style rail shooter, space flight simulator, and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto, developed and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic animals, led by chief protagonist Fox McCloud. Gameplay involves many adventures around the Lylat planetary system in the futuristic Arwing fighter aircraft, in other vehicles, and on foot. The original Star Fox (1993) is a forward-scrolling 3D rail shooter, but later games add more directional freedom.
Robot Wars is a British robot combat television series created by Tom Gutteridge and Stephen Carsey which aired from 1998 to 2004 and from 2016 to 2018. The series involves teams of amateur and professional roboteers operating remote controlled robots to fight against each other in an arena, which features hazards and the heavier "House Robots" which are hostile to all combatants. The first two series also included assault and trial courses.
Total War is a series of strategy games developed by British developer Creative Assembly for personal computers. They combine turn-based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. Rather uniquely for real-time strategy games, flanking manoeuvers and formations factor heavily into gameplay. The first of the series, Shogun: Total War, was released in June 2000. The most recent major game released was Total War: Pharaoh on October 11, 2023. As of April 2021, the series had sold over 36 million copies.
Beast Wars: Transformers is an animated television series that debuted on September 16, 1996 and ended on May 7, 1999, serving as the flagship of the Transformers: Beast Wars franchise. It was one of the earliest fully CGI television shows. The series is set in the future of the "original" Transformers franchise, 300 years after the events of The Transformers, and features the Maximals and Predacons, descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons respectively. While engaged in battle, small teams from each faction crash land on an unknown planet, and must find a way to return home while continuing their war.
Guild Wars is an online role-playing game franchise developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. The games were critically well received and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as "Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year" by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, as well as Best Value, Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), and Best Game. Guild Wars was noted for being the "first major MMO to adopt a business model not based on monthly subscription fees", its instanced approach to gameplay, and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications. In April 2009, NCSoft announced that 6 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold. The sequel and fourth major entry into the series, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007 and released on August 28, 2012. It features updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and continues the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees. The Guild Wars series had sold 11.5 million copies by August 2015
Robot combat is a type of robot competition in which custom-built machines fight using various methods to incapacitate each other. The machines have generally been remote-controlled vehicles rather than autonomous robots.
One Must Fall: 2097 is a fighting video game for all IBM-compatible computers on DOS, programmed by Diversions Entertainment, published by Epic MegaGames and released in October 1994. The game was later patched to include multiplayer support. In February 1999, the game was declared freeware by the developers. A sequel titled One Must Fall: Battlegrounds was released in 2003.
Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy is a robot combat action video game developed by Gabriel Entertainment and published by Infogrames. It is the sequel to Robot Arena, in the Robot Arena videogame series. Compared to its predecessor, it has many new features, such as the Havok physics engine and fully 3-D environments.
Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals is a 1999 3D fighting game based on the Transformers: Beast Wars cartoon series and toy-line for the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. Each version features different mechanics and playable characters.
Ratchet & Clank is a series of action-adventure platform and third-person shooter video games created and developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation consoles, such as PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, with the exception of Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank, both of which were developed by High Impact Games for the PlayStation Portable. The series was exclusive to Sony platforms until Rift Apart received a Windows port in 2023. An animated feature film adaptation was released in 2016.
Robot Wars: Arenas Of Destruction is a 2001 action game published by BBC Multimedia and released for the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows, based on the BBC television series, Robot Wars. It was the first of the company's titles to be released under the "Gamezlab" core brand.
Robot Wars: Extreme Destruction is an action game developed by Climax Development and published by BBC Multimedia under their game development label Gamezlab in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows and Xbox. It was given a release in the run-up to Christmas to build on the success of the three previous games, which had sold over 250,000 copies.
Ben 10 is an American media franchise conceived by Man of Action, produced by Cartoon Network Studios, and owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment. The franchise revolves around a young boy named Ben Tennyson, who discovers the Omnitrix — a high-tech, extraterrestrial device shaped like a wristwatch. This remarkable gadget contains the DNA of various alien species, allowing Ben to transform into them at will. Initially, the Omnitrix features ten alien transformations, but over time, Ben gains the ability to unlock additional species.
Super Robot Wars UX is a tactical role-playing game for the Nintendo 3DS developed by Banpresto and published by Namco Bandai Games. It is the first Super Robot Wars (SRW) game for the 3DS and was released in Japan on March 14, 2013. The theme of this game is "Possibilities".
Robot Wars: Metal Mayhem is the first video game based on the British game show Robot Wars. It was released exclusively for Game Boy Color on 7 December 2000. It was the first of four games based on the show, with the first three selling over 250,000 copies. The game was based on the third series of the show, and competitors such as its champion Chaos 2 feature in the game.
Toys-to-life is a video game feature using physical figurines or action figures to interact within the game. These toys use a near field communication (NFC), radio frequency identification (RFID), or image recognition data protocol to determine the individual figurine's proximity, and save a player's progress data to a storage medium located within that piece. It was one of the most lucrative branches of the video game industry especially during the late 1990s and 2010s, with the Skylanders franchise alone selling more than $3 billion worth over the course of four years.
