Recent content by Ollie Barder

Except the Atlas did fall under the legal wrangling that ensued on account of the similarities I laid out, the fact you're unable to see them isn't really relevant. Subsequently, alterations to the base Atlas design had to be made due to this - though no-one has yet to link the updated design so...

Yes, that's the wonder of the three Another Century's Episode games, of which that is the unfortunate last. Close to 40 years of real robot mecha high fiving for the win and it's a huge amount of fun, though that's hardly surprising as the games were developed by From Software (you can play that...

Char's Counterattack, classic film that. You'll like this then...

ED-209 was designed by a chap called Craig Davies [http://www.robocoparchive.com/info/making1-ed209.htm] and who based his design on American cars at the time, as Robocop was set in Detroit. So on the surface it appears to be an all American piece of mecha. However, and this is the issue...

I'm afraid you're quite mistaken in a few areas. Namely, the designation is actually very specific to humanoid shaped robots and multiple anime and games do refer to mecha rather than robot (as robots are regarded as being unpiloted you see). Mecha designers are also very upfront about the...

Your recollection of the Japanese definition is wholly inaccurate, however fuchikomas/tachikomas are indeed mecha though. Regardless of the fact they can operate on their own, as ultimately many famous mecha work in the same way (Giant Gorg, Tetsujin 28-go, various Mortarr Heads from Five Star...

Indeed, mecha isn't realistic at all and bringing that to this discussion reeks of a straw man gambit. There are "real" types of mecha but this is not to be confused with an attempt at realism, more about giving a more rationale set of parameters for the mecha to operate within. So an Armored...

The tripods in War of the Worlds are indeed one of the first type of mecha but it's a moot point as contemporary mecha designs are predominantly bipedal. These newer bipedal designs in the West are actually derived from far earlier Japanese efforts. When people say they prefer the blockier...

There is no such thing as a "Western" mecha, they're derivative of Japanese designs. I'm pretty sure there was a sizeable amount of crappage in the cockpits of those ground pounders. In any case, Titan scaled mecha are almost always useless against smaller and nimbler mecha. Shirow...

Nothing in Western mecha comes close to the brilliance of Ichiro Itano's mecha choreography.

In regards to Battletech, the Dougram [http://sarna.net/wiki/Shadow_Hawk]. There are many instances, in Battletech alone, were this type of design plagiarism took place. Western mecha design is consequently hugely derivative.

What's funny about this is that, technically, there is no such thing as purely Western mecha design; as it's entirely derivative in regards to its host inspiration - that of the original Japanese mecha designs. Battletech, Mechwarrior, Heavy Gear and a slew of other games rely heavily on the...

Neither really, which is the point I suppose as a designer's job is not what most people assume it to be.

For those that misinterpreted parts of the article; reading musical notation is a purely visual exercise. Whilst the musical feedback is subsequently aural, the way it is parsed is remarkably similar to how games are played. That was the point really. The argument made also stipulated that...

Glad people liked the piece but the rabbit hole does go a lot deeper than people may think. Though due to wordcount and the technical nature of both subjects, the Escapist editorial (wisely) kept my approach as more of a primer. On the player/musician level the similarity of play is very...