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Mechassualt |
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You know,
I think that I was born too early. I should have been born when men and
women fight side by side in glorious battles, piloting 100-ton robots
known as Battlemechs. The adrenaline rush, the heat of the machinery,
the abuse of weapon after weapon slamming into your ‘mech if you make
one mistake. Whew – I’d better calm down before I sign up with one of
those deep-freeze companies and wake up in the far future...
To slake my urge for fighting in over-sized machinery, I have to regale
myself with the next best thing – games. Now, I’ve played the Battletech
miniatures game a long, long time ago, I’ve played the PC games, and
I’ve even played the newest addition to the Battletech universe –
Mecharrior from WizKids. When Microsoft came out with the Xbox and
released Mechassault, I wanted to play that too. There was only one
problem with that plan – the game was available only on the Xbox and not
on the Playstation II that I already owned. There was only one thing
that I could do – rent an Xbox and the game. Failing that, I figured
that I’d just buy one now that the price was down. Hmm, I guess that
leaves two things that I could do....
Ok, back on track here. After purchasing the Xbox and getting my hands
on the price-adjusted copy of Mechassault (it’s part of Xbox’s “Platinum
Hits” line of games) I tore into it and jumped into the included
Campaign. The storyline is taken from the WizKids game, so Battletech
purists may not care for it. However, the story is the only part that
has been taken from the new storyline based in the Dark Age of the
Battletech universe – none of the ‘mechs, from my knowledge, are used. I
didn’t see any of the new modified ‘mechs in the game – the agrimechs,
construction ‘mechs, etc. None – nada, zip, zilch.
The campaign runs you through 20 missions, some that are far too simple
on the “standard” difficulty setting, and some that are very tough, even
on the “easy” setting. I won’t get into the actual details of the
campaign storyline, but let me say that it’s laid out pretty well
although it isn’t the most creative. It works, however, and keeps you
interested throughout.
The multiplayer portion was my next target. Nowadays, some games live
and die by their multiplayer options, especially on the PC. Game
consoles weren’t exactly known for their multiplayer options, until the
newest generation of units came out.
Playstation II offers online capabilities if you purchase the high-speed
access module. The Xbox, however, is already online capable right out of
the box if you sign up for Xbox Live. More on Xbox Live later.
At first, I was a little disappointed by the multiplayer options. I
guess that I was looking for a multiplayer campaign – I’m not sure why I
thought that there would be. Nowadays, there’s separate options for the
multiplayer games.
I would have to say that the Grinder, an option for cooperative yet
still competitive in it’s own right, was my favorite option. In Grinder,
players choose their ‘mech of choice (more ‘mech’s are available when
you complete the campaign, by the way) and one of the 2 available
fighting locations. The object of Grinder is to score as many kills as
you can before you are taken out. It starts off easy enough, but as you
defeat opponents, more are added until things get all crazy and you
can’t move due to all of the opponents.
This was a blast to play with my son, but yesterday I found a way to
abuse the game in Grinder. We picked a spot to lurk, and would attack
the ‘mechs when they’d drop from the sky and fall back and attack them
as they advanced. When we first started playing Grinder, we were excited
to get over 30 kills between the 23 of us. After planning this new
attack coordination, I finally turned the game off after 201 combined
kills. It would help if the drone ‘mechs would take some initiative to
seek out their opponents, that would take care of this broken piece of
the game.
There are a couple of other multiplayer options available: Destruction
(count kills until time runs out), Last Man Standing (one death, that’s
it – last ‘mech standing wins), and the fun “Not It!” – the Battlemech
version of the popular game “tag.” This one was a little stale with 2
players, but I see it being a blast with more players.
That’s one thing that really rocks about the Xbox – you can hook 2 or
more of them together for multiplayer games. Unfortunately, my friends
either game on PC’s, or Playstation II’s.
Xbox Live is an option for multiplayer games. The cost to get started is
$50, or something like that. Not only do you gain access to other
players and the option to play online, you can DOWNLOAD content right
into the hard drive of your Xbox! Mechassault has a ton of goodies to
download, and that definitely adds some points to the rating that I gave
it. There are not only new ‘mechs available, but there are new arenas to
fight in and much more. Someday I am going to sign on to get my
Mechassualt downloads, but I’m waiting for the right time, and the right
offer from my local retailer.
The artificial intelligence of the game needs a little work, but I have
seen worse. There are some broken parts to the game that can be
exploited if you know where to find them. I won’t list them here for
gaming sake (and since I didn’t use them myself) but if you search the
‘net, you can find them. Ah heck – maybe I’ll prepare a page later for
the NGG website.
The rulebook is definitely lacking, especially since they don’t list all
of the ‘mechs available in the game, minus the ones that unlock after
you complete the campaign, of course. Luckily I found some nice people
who had taken the time to post the information on their websites, so I
was able to download them so I’d know what the game had to offer.
The graphics and sounds are pretty cool. I loved walking all over the
infantry in the game and watching them all explode. Ok, when people are
stepped on by a 60-ton mech they should “squish” instead of explode, but
its fun nonetheless. That will teach those pesky infantry units!
One area that is broken is on areas in the campaign where you are
supposed to be taken by surprise, the programmers had this really cool
music kick in that works in unison with the battle to pump things up a
bit. The problem is, for players that are being cautious, the music
kicks in and throws the element of surprise right out of the window.
When I first started playing Mechassault, I was somewhat disappointed. I
was used to playing ‘mech SIMULATORS (well, except for Mechwarrior: The
Dark Age from WizKids) and not this arcade-style of Battletech game. I
couldn’t target a leg to drop a 100-ton ‘mech and reduce it to a
quivering pile of salvage. In this game, you HAVE to take the opponent
out by destroying their ‘mech – something that I didn’t agree with being
a Battletech enthusiast at heart. After playing through a few campaign
missions, I was less disappointed and looked to the game as it was – an
arcade version of the Battletech games that I had come to love on my PC.
Overall, playing the game was pretty fun and I want to download the
extra goodies from Xbox Live. You have to ask yourself if you are ready
and willing for the arcade version of ‘mech combat, then get out there
and get a copy, especially since its cheaper now. Also note that there
is a plan to release Mechassault 2 – something that I wouldn’t have
guessed from the way the campaign ended (yes, that was sarcasm my
friends). I wanted to give the game a rating in the high “3” zone, but I
can’t take it below a 4. There’s just something about these games, even
in their dumbed-down form, that I just enjoy. I guess that it’s just the
‘mech jockey in me...
Written by Gene Vogel
(Posted 05-02-2004)