MechAssault
Score: 95% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Fasa Studio Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 8 Genre: Action/ Shooter
Graphics & Sound: I'm willing to bet few people know what a Battletech Center is. Hell, I'm willing to bet few people even know what Battletech is. For the uninitiated, Battletech can be summed up in one phrase: Big robots blowing the hell out of everything. Regardless of all the factions, support armies, and every other aspect of the Battletech (or Mech Warrior) universe, at its core Battletech is all about taking a big robot, or Mech, and bringing its awesome firepower to bear on anything and everything in sight. Make no mistake; these aren't the flying Mechs you've seen in various Japanese imports like Gundam, these are ground-based walking tanks. Anyway, getting back to what a Battletech Center was, during the late 80's - early 90's some major cities had Battletech Centers, which were giant rooms filled with Battletech simulator games. After paying a fee, gamers got the chance to sit in one of these simulators and go to war with people in the other simulators. Unfortunately these centers never caught on and were soon forgotten. Why am I bringing this up? Read on. MechAssault is graphical feat and really shows off what the Xbox is capable of. Everything is amazingly detailed right down to foot prints in snow, realistic battle damage, and frost appearing on your Mech when it's cold. One of the really amazing things is how each level is scaled to fit your Mech. For example, if you're piloting an Elemental, the game world will look much larger than it would if you were playing as an Atlas. It may not seem like that big of a deal, but it adds a lot to the immersion factor. The developers even took weight into account with some terrain types. Bigger Mechs will have an even harder time running through water and snow than lighter Mechs. It's these little details that make the game even better. When you first start a mission with a Mech, it's nice and shiny. As it takes battle damage, the Mech will begin to smoke and buckle. Eventually smoke will begin to billow out of your Mech, it will begin to spark, and the seams on your Mech will begin to glow as the reactor core begins to overload. As if these didn't make things tense enough, as your Mech nears destruction it will even begin to limp and drag its smoldering body like a wounded animal trying a last desperate attempt to escape a predator. Warfare has never sounded this good - especially to those with Dolby 5.1 capabilities. Multi-rockets flying all over the map, machine guns rattling, and sweet sound of energy weapons charging up all help to make MechAssault's audio experience as immersive as its visual component. My only real complaint with the sound is the absence of a custom soundtrack feature. It's not that the music is particularly bad - in fact you're likely to never hear it with all the other sounds going on - but blowing up my friends on Live would be so much better with a few metal tracks in the background.
Gameplay: MechAssault isn't your typical Mech game. Whereas most consist of you outfitting your Mech with the right equipment and lugging its heavy ass over to the battlefield, MechAssault sticks to the fun part of Mech games - climbing into a 5 story walking tanks and causing big explosions. As a mercenary with the Wolf Dragoons, your team has been contracted to undertake a mission to the Planet Helios and join a strike force. Upon arrival, your ship is shot down forcing your crew to abandon ship with a few of your Mechs. After contacting your employers you learn that a fanatical group known as the Word of Blake is making a power grab for control of the planet. It's your job to put a monkey wrench in their plans. When you first begin the game you are limited in your selection of Mechs since all but one have been damaged in the crash. As the missions progress, your team will acquire new Mechs by either repairing the damaged ones or liberating them from the enemy. Although it is primarily an action game, MechAssault contains quite a bit of strategy as well. In addition to choosing which Mech to use in each mission, you also have to decide which of its three weapons work best in which situations. This is also an area of the game where your environment takes a big priority. Unlike most games, the environments are completely destructible. For example, hiding behind a building may sound like a good idea until your opponent destroys it, not only taking away your cover, but also causing you damage due to the 'splash damage' of the explosion. These strategies also work on rock faces and bridges and learning to use them is vital to your survival both on and offline. Ah, the online experience as only Xbox Live can give you. This is where the Battletech Centers come into play. Remember how I was telling you that playing at the centers allowed you to climb into the Mech of your choice and blast away at friends? That's the experience MechAssault tries to recreate, only on a much cheaper scale. Once you log into the servers, you can search through all of the available games via the Optimatch option or look on your buddy list and invite friends into a match. Online games offer the following modes: Destruction, Team Destruction, Last Man Standing, Team Last Man Standing, and 'Not It!'. There's really no way to sum up how much fun the online MechAssault experience is - especially when you throw in the voice communication. The one problem I had with playing online is the lack of a chat room after games. Once you get a game going with a group of people, it's really hard to set up another match with the same people since you are dumped out to the online menu screen after each match is over. A match chatroom like the one used in SOCOM would have been a big plus. By the way, if any readers are interested in a match, feel free to add my username, TFO Starscream, to your lists. One of the more interesting online features available is the Download Content feature. As time goes on, Microsoft plans on making new Mechs, maps, and other goodies available free of charge. Not only will this keep the game fresh, but it will also save you the hassle of having to buy a whole new game just to get a few more Mechs. Best of all, the downloads are free. In order to access the online features, players must have an Xbox Live account/kit, which is available separately for fifty dollars, and a broadband Internet connection. This includes the software needed to bring your Xbox online, the voice communicator, and online demos for Whacked! And MotoGP. MechAssault is also one of the first games to tie how well you're doing in the single player game in with your online experience. By completing the single player mode, you can unlock two new Mechs for online play as a way to show just how good you are. Believe me, once you see these guys in action you'll want to beat the game.
Difficulty: MechAssault wastes no time in getting you right into the action. Although throwing you out to the wolves without any training may sound hard, it's not. In fact, you'd be surprised how fast people will learn things when their life is on the line. The first few missions serve as training missions, allowing players to learn how to pilot their Mech, use the terrain to their advantage, and how to form battle plans. Diving headlong into any battle is always a stupid idea, so this is probably the most important lesson you learn in the game. The game's difficulty ramps up over time and gets really intense later on in the game. Online, it's all about how good your opponents are and how well your team communicates during team matches.
Game Mechanics: Another thing that separates MechAssault from other Mech games is the easy to use control scheme. For anyone who has played Halo or any FPS on the Xbox, the controls should come easy. The left stick moves your Mech and the R stick rotates the torso. If your Mech is equipped with jump jets or defensive weapons, pressing the sticks will activate them. Weapon selection is handled in one of two ways. Each weapon is identified by a color: yellow, red, and blue. It just so happens that there are yellow, red, and blue buttons on the Xbox controller. Pressing each of these buttons arms the corresponding weapon. For those heated battle moments, you can also quickly cycle through your weapons by pressing the L-trigger. Firing weapons is as easy as pressing the R-trigger, but it is important to note that some weapons have reload and charge times associated with them. While on Live, the black button opens up a chat channel that only your team members can hear and the white button brings up the current game stats. What else can I say about this game? MechAssault is one of those games that every Xbox owner should pick up. Offline, it's a game that will keep you busy for sometime, while the online component will dominant all of your free time. Besides, who wouldn't want the opportunity to attack me? I'm sure a few people out there -cough-GaryColeman-cough- who would love a shot. TFO Starscream Bring it on shorty! Update: Microsoft has just announced that it will release the first series of downloadable content this January. Included in the set will be a new map entitled 'Hell's Kitchen', a dense industrial environment set on a fiery volcanic world. The download will also include two new Mechs, the Raven and Corvus. The company also plans on releasing additional levels and a capture the flag mode.
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
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