Smart video game reviewers agree: Production values do not matter. Graphics do not matter. Sound tracks do not matter. Storylines do not matter. No, the chorus goes, it is all about the game play. At first dint this looks like several ticks in the "pro" column for Custom Robo, a game with some of the lowest production values you will ever encounter. It is ugly to look at. It grates on the ears. It carries itself with all the dignity and grace of a zit-speckled 13-year-old.

But we remember the words of the smart video game reviewers, and we withhold judgment. We remember that games have looked crappy and sounded crappy before but turned out to offer the Finely Tuned Play Experience. We are optimistic.

Custom Robo is all about fighting with robots. The idea is that sometime in the future when people are too advanced and too civilized to get their hands dirty anymore, they will settle all their disputes by battling their pet robots against each other. What's more, their pet robots will be wholly virtual, confined to digital arenas where they can knock the stuffing out of each other without burning the carpet or getting grease on the couch.

It is not easy to imagine a society that works this way, where every argument gets settled by proxy electronic fist fights. Unless you count Pokémon, which imagines a future society in which people store their pet electronic critters on their PCs and settle their disputes by battling them against each other.

Wait a moment. Custom Robo is a Nintendo product. Pokémon is a Nintendo product. Pokémon as a brand is notoriously focused on the pre-teen market. You don't suppose Custom Robo is an effort to expand the appeal of the collecting-and-fighting idiom into an older demographic, do you?

Yes you do, for you are clever and insightful. It is not a bad idea, either. Pokémon is a little saccharine, true, but there is no denying its play value. It is a Finely Tuned Play Experience. Adapting the model to a new motif based on fighting robots will work like a charm, no?

No. For while Custom Robo is shabby to look at and grating on the ears, it is also completely devoid of charm. Here is how you play.

You begin by trying out a few quick robot fights. Oh. You cannot fight against the computer at the beginning. You must have a friend over. Oh. You cannot customize your robot at the beginning. You must earn spare parts by playing through the "Story" mode first. Oh. You send your friend home and promise to telephone when the game is ready for action.

OK then. You begin the Story, hoping for bold adventure and blasty robot fun. Instead you get a lame, lame rehash of the worst role-playing-game conventions. You learn that your father, who disappeared years ago, was a great robot battler. You learn that he wanted you to become one too. You learn that you are sloppy and do not like to get out of bed in the morning. You learn that you have a job interview with a firm whose employees work as mercenaries, battling their robots against other robots for hire.

You learn all this by reading text on the screen. As each character speaks, a horrific bleepy Morse code noise rings out, and the words appear letter by letter, as if they are being rendered by a futuristic typewriter. The beeping does not stop. It goes on and on. It asks you to do stupid and boring things. You do get to fight robots, and this is OK, but before long you realize that you are good at fighting or you are not. All the extra parts and all the customization don't matter very much.

You do phone your friend, but you decide that maybe you will go outside instead.