12/16/02 � By Spikedpunch
Based on the name and general theme of this site, this article should come as no great surprise. As many game sites will tell you, 2002 on the Xbox was �The Year of the Mech�. I of course couldn�t be more pleased with that. And with Murakumo coming out next year I will keep my mech skills honed in 2003 and maintain my status as Mech King. Below are my top three choices and the keys to my Mech Kingdom.
What can I say? The link and photos on my front page should give you an idea of how much I love this game. It�s not that the game is the greatest. There are a lot of other videogames that are better than Steel Battalion. But the gaming experience of Steel Battalion cannot be matched by any other videogame�period. This is not so much a game as a sim. You use a 40-button controller and three pedals to pilot a ten-story Vertical Tank armed with guns as big as those on a battleship. In fact you even get to test that out by sinking a battleship. The game is set in 2080 and your part of an army trying to bring the rogue nation of Hai Shi Dao to heel. Tycho from Penny Arcade first noted that this game is so detailed that it wouldn�t be surprising if there were really machines like these in the works and we are simply being trained to pilot them. In terms of training, I recently spoke to one of my guys at EB who told me that one owner (there are 3 of us from that EB � Kricket, me, and another guy) returned his and said it was too �complicated�. Needless to say I started laughing at this trainee washout and hope his replacement will fare better. The unit sold in less than an hour after return.
Also keeping with the realism of the game there are two interesting features to the gameplay, death and relegation. If you die inside your tank (by not ejecting in time), your game and that character are done. If you lose too many tanks and run out of the necessary supply points to keep a tank in operation, you will be relegated to a desk�game over again. I�ve actually had my palms sweating as I rush to finish a mission and stay alive (Mission 6 is the best example). The game forces a certain level of involvement and attachment not found in most games. With 23 missions, 4 difficulty levels, almost 20 mechs with a variety of weapon layouts available, and almost too much realism there is plenty to keep you busy for a long time.
This was a tough call choosing this over Mechassault, but this game is so quirky and fun it squeaked its way to number two. This game is set in a post-apocalyptic Japan where the sport of choice is piloting small mechs known as �Scoobees� in arena style combat (Rumbling). There are three different basic mechs to choose from, but you can customize them in tons of ways. Arms, legs, paint job, weapons, body, stickers, module weight, and AI control chips can all be changed or tweaked as desired. There are only three arenas to fight in, which is somewhat of a weak point to the game. But these arenas are so big and intricate, that it makes up for the lack of number of stages. You essentially battle your way through four rank classes (A � D) in each stage, league games, and a lot of specialized free matches to work your way to the top of the heap in Rumbling. Along the way you will interact with many quirky and unique characters through very extensive (painfully so) conversations. With a customizable soundtrack consisting of equally quirky and fun Asian music (I think there are some groups from Korea in there as well as Japan) you can play this game for days and play with different layouts and setups until you reach a blissful mech overload.
