Heat plays a crucial role in limiting the amount of firepower that can be expelled at any given time. It takes quite an effort to ge the mech to shutdown a la
MechWarrior as they cool down fairly quickly. A heat indicator resides alongside the health meter that helps track the amount of heat you're building up. When it gets full you'll have to wait for it to cool down again before you can fire your weapons. Salvage has also taken a secondary role, basically acting as health packets that will replenish your mech’s health. Destroying an enemy mech or a specific type of building will yield you a stack of salvage to help repair your mech. Your firepower is unlimited although you can pick up packets of ammo that will increase their power for a limited amount of time.
The most impressive aspect of the game resides in the combat system and more importantly, the destruction and devastation of entire cities and facilities. Instead of showing some generic damage animations, buildings will actually flame and crumple in the areas that you are targeting. Most buildings even have objects on them that can be destroyed such air conditioning units and radar devices that fall off when they’re hit. The effects are nothing to scoff at either, just watching the destruction of each and every building is amazing. Destroying entire cities will randomly be included as part of the required objectives but if you’re like me, you’ll find time for it anyways. This game gave me such a huge power trip that I felt like the American version of Godzilla. Foot soldiers were running from me left and right as I decimated their cities with the slightest of ease. I now know what it feels like to be God.
This is a very beautiful games that takes advantage of the Xbox’s excellent graphical horsepower. The artists have dedicated massive amounts of time to assure of us an excellent graphical experience and it’s readily apparent from the start. Everything is rendered with high amounts of details and your eyes will be thankful for it. Mechs look great thanks to the refinement in their designs and structures. Much effort was put into the mechs to allow us to differentiate between them simply by looking at them. You won’t soon be mistaking the Cougar for the Atlas any time soon.
This game really should have been released on the 4th of July because it provides one of the most impressive fireworks displays that you’ll ever see. Enemies don’t just simply fall down and vanish when you’re through with them, they’ll spark, catch on fire and eventually, will erupt into a mass of metal and fire. There is no such thing as a casual explosion here as every single one of them is highly detailed and eye-catching. You’ll see chunks of metal fly accompanied by huge blazes of flame and smoke culminating in one hell of a graphical showcase. Not one weapon in the game yields modest results; lasers emit brilliant flashes of light while missiles are accompanied by an impressive smoke trail. Environments are rendered quite nicely as well. Each of the cities features buildings that seem entirely unique to the area, urban areas will feature smaller buildings while the larger cities will feature skyscrapers and office buildings. If flashy visuals and bright lights are your bag then you’ll definitely want to check this one out.
For a towering hunk of steel, each mech handles quite well. The game controls much like a console first person shooter; the left analog stick controls the feet while the right analog stick controls the turret. Instead of outfitting your mechs with various weapons, they already come preset with three different weapons that serve different purposes. Usually you’ll have a power weapon, a lock-on weapon and a weapon designed to take out infantry and such. The right trigger is used to fire the weapons while the left trigger scrolls through your available weapons. Suppressing the left analog stick will activate the jumpjets while pressing the right analog stick will activate the mech’s specific defense mechanism. There are a few hitches with the controls such as they often have a tendency to be nice and tight at one moment only to become painfully sluggish a few moments later. This is only a rare occurrence, however, and the controls remained fairly intuitive for the majority of the time.
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