This Xbox Live launch title has certainly lived up to the hype surrounding it. They took the MechWarrior series of games and tuned it down somewhat to make it easy for everyone to pick it up and play. It is actually more of a shooter with mechs. The control scheme is very simple. You don�t even need any of the face buttons to play, just the triggers and analog sticks. There are currently 18 mechs (more can be downloaded soon) and the Elemental power armor to choose from. However in single player, you will only use a little over half of these to complete the roughly 20-hour single player campaign. Once you beat the single player mode you will unlock the very nasty Ragnarok heavy mech for that character. The other great thing about this game is a destructible environment that can be used against your opponents. For example, I once collapsed a building underneath Kricket then gave him a couple of rockets to make him go boom.
Of course since this is an Xbox Live title, most of the gameplay and emphasis is on the multiplayer aspect. One word of advice about multiplayer�always play with more than 3 people. Pretty much every time we�ve played this game someone has gotten upset because of the 2 on 1 factor (cough cough�Kricket). I can definitely understand that feeling since I�ve had up to 4 people pounding on me at one time before in a lame attempt to dethrone me as the Mech King. So it�s best to get a big group going so you so you can pick and choose your fight. This is also the game in which I have time and again proved my dominance and established myself as Mech King�you may bow now. So if you have an Xbox you really need to pick this one up.
On a side note, I didn�t list Robotech: Battlecry here because I feel it is more of a niche shooting game to me rather than a pure mech game. Well, there you have it. If you can master these three games you should be on your way to entering my kingdom and who knows�someday you may rule it. But I doubt it.
