Robotech Invasion follows Battlecry as the next episode of gaming based on the Robotech animated series. Invasion takes place after earth has been invaded by the Invid. You'll be part of the vastly outmanned and outgunned resistance doing its best to fight off swarms of enemies all over the planet. It may not be as epic and memorable to fans as the Macross saga, but it'll do.

You'll start off with a standard pea-shooter and have to fight your way through the first level with little information. There are other soldiers around you, and your compass will tell you roughly which direction to go, but that's about it. After the opening scene, the first thing you'll notice is that you and your fellow soldiers seem hopelessly outgunned. You'll be plugging away at giant robot-insects for what seems like an eternity with no visual confirmation that anything you do bothers them. Occasionally, they'll notice you and shoot back or stomp clumsily in your direction, but it's not hard to make them miss. If you keep shooting, not matter how fruitless it seems, sooner or later the big guys will start falling.

That's the biggest problem with Invasion. In a futuristic shooting game involving giant robots you have a right to expect some feeling of satisfaction during a fight. You're looking forward to big guns, big explosions and a big sigh of relief when they finally blow up. But you never get that playing this game. Most of the guns sound and feel similar. You'll have to simply plug away until the bad guys die (you can knock them out in one shot if you hit a certain spot), and when it happens the resulting emotion is closer to relief that the level is that much closer to being over as opposed to any sense of accomplishment. Your default weapon gets upgraded: It starts off as a pistol, then you get an automatic rifle and, later, a sniper scope. It gets more powerful, but it doesn't get more exciting to use.

At least the controls are solid and customizable. Moving with the left stick and aiming with the right should be familiar territory, and the rest of the controls are just as intuitive. Adjustable sensitivity helps, and it's nice to play a game in which the controller is your friend right off the bat as opposed to being part of the learning curve.

Instead of switching from giant robot form to a fighter plane (as in Battlecry), in Robotech Invasion you'll pull off a more modest transformation. Most of the time you'll be on foot, but you'll also be able to engage the turbo cycle that's integrated into your Cyclone armor. You won't be able to use it indoors, which is lame, but when outside it will make some of the longer treks around the map faster. Unfortunately, the controls are terrible. Making turns with any sort of speed is a guessing game and the cycle's ability to run over terrain that's anything but perfect leaves a lot to be desired. You'll get hung up on almost any stray scenery. And because the cycle doesn't move all that fast, you'll probably prefer to run around.

Running is something you'll do a lot, too. The levels are pretty big and the missions send you on a fair amount of backtracking to make the most of it. There are escort missions and "kill everyone you see" missions, and that about sums it up. There's way too much tacked on that just feels like busy work. After some missions, for example, you'll have to retrace your steps all the way back to where you started. There are no more enemies, no new challenges, it's just a long walk.

The enemies aren't much more interesting than the mission structure. Most of them have terrible aim and are easy to hit. It's actually hard to get killed by the big, lumbering Invid on the ground so they end up being more of a chore than a challenge.

But there is good news. You'll play a few different roles, and the story is interesting enough. You'll also earn improvements, like a faster turbo cycle, night vision, thermal vision and camouflage. But what really saves Invasion is an online mode for up to eight players. The online game options are familiar, with capture the flag and deathmatch leading the way. Despite the relatively low profile of the game, I didn't have much trouble finding a game online. And the games I found were a lot of fun: The server menu is easy and clear and the controls stayed responsive - it ran very well online, even though the player limit is a bit low.

Robotech games would probably be more compelling if they focused on the more popular eras of the series, like the Macross saga. Robotech Invasion is about the fight against the Invid, and that puts the game in competition with every other futuristic shooter instead of playing to the strengths of the series: big robots that switch into planes and fire scores of side winding missiles. As it is, Invasion will probably end up on the budget shelf with several other, similar games, unless fans of the show coming looking for an online shooter.