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Like a thirty-five ton Italian housewife
from Tuscany:
MechWarrior’s Journal: November 13th, 2002:
It was supposed to be a covert mission with a simple agenda.
Two lances of ‘mechs were to drop onto the planet, sneak
across half a continent, and blow up the planetary defensive
gun batteries in preparation for the arrival of the bulk of
the Wolf’s Dragoons forces. Unfortunately for us, someone
on the ground wasn’t on the same page as we were. During
the decent into the atmosphere, our dropship came under fire
(doesn’t it always?) and was forced to make a crash
landing. All of the other pilots managed to get their ‘mechs
out of the dropship before it went down except for me. Now
I’m left to scout the area around the crash site, alone,
in a 35 ton Cougar light ‘mech. The rest of my team
mates are missing aside from my commanding officer, her “Briefing
Boy”, and the crew of the dropship that survived the
impact. I’m tired, it looks like it’s going to
rain, and I’m in no mood to be annoyed. That was the
first (and last) mistake these infantry soldiers made. I don’t
envy the technician who’ll be scraping these people
out from between my ‘mech’s toes, but the day
is suddenly looking up…
This is how your experience with MechAssault will begin.
You’ll be impressed by the graphics, vastly pleased
by the ease of the controls, and then amused beyond words
when you find that the smashing of infantry under your armored
feet is not only permitted, but encouraged. From the first
time in MechWarrior 4 that I ever ran over an infantryman,
I’ve been very pleased by games that give you the ability
to do what seems so logical when seated in a 40 foot tall
walking tank and faced with a dozen idiots with laser rifles.
MechAssault, being that it is played from the 3rd person view,
makes this carnage all the more sweet.
Before I get ahead of myself, I feel that I must make one
thing perfectly clear about this game. This game is not a
Mech simulation. There is no manual startup or shutdown of
your ‘mech. There is no option to customize your ‘mech’s
armor or weapons or special equipment. There is no location
specific damage tracking. You have a health bar… one
of them… not separate armor and internal structure status
displays. You can’t blow off a ‘mech’s leg
exclusively, and, you will be collecting power ups. That’s
right, people… this is not a sim, but rather a third
person shooter. You know what though? It works quite well
as that, so if you have some kind of predisposed opinion that
this game is no good because it’s not hardcore enough
for you, then you can leave the review now.
Anyone left? Good. You should be proud of yourselves for
being so open minded. I’ve already given the gist of
the opening story here, but it’s worth commenting on
again. The story in MechAssault is very, very, very (…very…)
standard BattleTech fare. You’re going in to blow something
up, something goes wrong, you have to cope, it’s your
own personal hell, you hang in there, and you win. It’s
been done countless times in BattleTech related novels, video
games, pen-and-paper RPGs and fan fiction, but you really
can’t fault it for that. After all, who wants to read
a story where eight forty-foot tall war machines stroll through
a flowery meadow and pump a few dozen missiles into the bad
guy’s base with no adversity what so ever? It would
make for a dull book and an even more dull game, so, therefore,
we have this established formula.
Even with the standard and somewhat predictable premise,
the story manages to captivate. The events in each mission
are closely woven into the plot, and some missions flow seamlessly
into the next. The top notch voice acting delivered by your
commanding officer and “Briefing Boy” go a long
way toward setting the atmosphere as well. Your commanding
officer is convincingly calm, laid back, yet intense…
just as you expect a seasoned MechCommander to be. Briefing
Boy on the other hand is a typically fussy and somewhat jittery
technical sort with an obsession for the minutia of any situation
and a somewhat deluded fantasy of becoming a MechWarrior himself
someday. Your nemesis, the Commander of the Word of Blake
forces on the planet, comes across as an extremely preachy,
overly zealous psychopath, not unlike Jerry Falwell or Pat
Robertson. Depending on your view of ludicrously conservative
Christian factions, this may add to your enjoyment of the
game as stomping the Word of Blake into the dirt is what it’s
all about.
The two things that shine even more brightly than MechAssault’s
story and delivery are the sumptuous graphical detail and
silky smooth controls. These are the controls that previous
console mecha games like Armored Core 2 should have had. The
left analog stick moves you forward, back, and rotates the
lower half of your Mech. The right stick controls the vertical
tilt and horizontal rotation of your Mech’s upper body
(a.k.a. “aiming”). Pushing the left thumb stick
down fires the jump jets, the right stick turns on secondary
systems like decoys and a Predator-esque cloaking devise.
The B, Y, and X buttons switch between your weapon types,
which are positioned and color coded on the on status display
to match the color and position of the buttons on the controller.
This subtle attention to detail makes the selection of the
desired weapon type (energy, ballistic, and missile) incredibly
intuitive. The level of control you have over these massive
yet surprisingly spry BattleMechs is nothing short of intoxicating.
There are few experiences in gaming that are better than faking
out an enemy’s missiles with a jump to the left and
a step to the right.
MechAssault would be a spectacular game even without great
graphics, but it goes well beyond resting on its laurels.
Simply put, MechAssault is one of the most beautiful games
yet on any platform, and by far the best looking BattleTech
game ever released. From the smallest infantry unit to the
hulking Atlas, every unit in the game is meticulously detailed.
The Mechs themselves are graced with such a level of detail
that you’ll be noticing new things throughout the game.
For example, the way your Mech collects snow in the arctic
levels or how the rain splatters on your Mech. In nighttime
level, the Mech’s even have flashing running lights
and you can easily see their heat sinks glowing more and more
brightly as your heat levels rise in a firefight. Mechs look
progressively more banged up as they take damage, ranging
from pristine to the occasional spark and wisp of smoke all
the way to a battered, ragged state where the seams of the
Mech glow as though it were bursting at the seams. And then
a Mech does burst its seams, that’s when the graphics
really impress. Mech’s fall to the ground, doubled over,
and a sphere of white light builds as the reactor goes critical.
The explosion, shockwave, and roiling plume of black smoke,
fire, and flying, flaming debris that follows if easily the
very best explosion ever seen in any game, on any platform,
period. Other graphical points of note are the spectacular
light sourcing and the detail involved in destroying objects
like buildings. Glass shatters, fires break out, light’s
go out as the building loses electricity, great chunks fall
from the superstructure, and then the whole thing comes crashing
down. Honestly, it’s enough to bring a tear to the eye
of any BattleTech fan. It gives me shivers just thinking about
it.
All this environmental destruction isn’t just for show
however. From shooting a bridge out from under an enemy tank
column to bringing a building down on a Mech or making that
light Mech go “boom” when standing next to a bigger,
tougher opponent, it all can be used to soften up or outright
obliterate your enemies. This adds a lot of versatility to
the gameplay and different ways to tackle any given level.
In addition to all of this goodness, you also get Xbox Live
support. Starting in January, you’ll be able to download
new maps and Mechs for multiplayer play. Add that to the already
impressive stable of multiplayer game types, available on
Xbox Live, through system link, and split screen, and you
have a game that is the definition of why Xbox is the superior
console for multiplayer gaming.
In short, this is the game that made Penny Arcade love the
Xbox. Enough said.
-K'Tok
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