Well, I figure I might as well start doing something with this damned Escapist Account I opened up, so here's a review I wrote on a whim... don't castrate me if I did badly, please and thank ya.
---
STEEL BATTALION
Review by Tyler "Eyepatch Cyborg" Ury
Let me start this off by saying I've always had a fond spot for mechs, ever since my older brother introduced me to Gundam Wing when I was about 6. I've always really loved mech games, Gundam games especially, but there was always a hole there. A hole that was left with me knowing I wasn't piloting a mech, I was hitting a button to fire something inside the mech, so maybe I'm biased in my thinking about this game due to it's gigantic obsession with immersion, but I suppose all reviews are subjective and thus this is an opinion, but what review isn't?
Off of that run-on sentence train, I'll start with one little comment: This game, developed by the oddly named "Nude Maker" (don't blame me, blame Japan), partially formed by the developer of games such as the classic "Clock Tower" series, will want to make you kill things. I don't mean in the good way, like motivating you to crush your enemies out of saving your little puppy. No, I mean shooting dogs in the street out of frustration. This. Game. Is. Hard. Along with the huge panel of controls that will confuse you like hell at first, with some slight shining of light the only thing to guide you along, it's not suprising that most of the times someone begins, their random flailing results in them comedically turning on the windshield wipers in an attempt to blast their enemies to bits with the tiny pea-throwing machine that comes strapped by default.
I am tempted to say that there is a steep mountain as a difficulty curve, but it's unfair to say that. No, this game is not a mountain of difficulty curve, it is a difficulty curve that makes God weep. If you fail to eject out of your exploding mech, and your mech (or VT as this game likes to put it,) you will die. No matter how far in the game you are, regardless if you're one shot away from the last mission or just stepped out of the tutorial, this game will beat you with a baseball bat and force you to restart the entire game at the very beginning. Even if you do eject, it's unlikely that you'll have any money to buy a new VT, and thus you'll be forced to start at the beginning.
The worst part?
You can't say, "Oh, I'll just reload from Point A before I fail at Point B." No, this game doesn't work that way. It has save points between missions. If you die, it doesn't just boot you back to the title screen with a slap of the wrist, it deletes that save file. There's no way to get it back, no matter how hard you worked on it. It's like some guy offering you a puppy, and then you raise it and care for it for years and years on end, and then the guy comes back and shoots the puppy, and after you finish grieving, shoots you. This game bitchslaps you if you dare to decide, nay, even think that you don't feel like winning today.
Goddamn is it frustrating.
And yet I love this game so damn much.
You see, there's a certain element of the difficulty. A certain element that afterwards, you realize you can actually take this on. Slowly, but surely, you adjust to the difficulty level. There is nothing more satisfying than tearing through a group of people who have terrorized your previous characters for so long like tissue paper after finally learning the controls and tricks of the large panel.
Did I mention that in depth, by the way? No? Okay. By the way, this game comes with a friggin' huge panel of controls that you'd think would be in a real mech. You have to wonder why these guys aren't designing for the actual military! From designatable com buttons to the buttons to trigger the cockpit, OS of the mech, the viewpoint, gear shift (we're not even onto automatic high-tech military weaponry yet? D'aw,) to the almost clichéd eject button with the glass (actually, plastic) lift-up cover. It's ridicoulous how in-depth these guys were about every little thing on the controller, and you become truly, really, inevtiably immersed in the universe as you blaze your way through mechanized combat vehicle after the other, only to lose your abilities to a sudden shot at the wrong time.
I still think the difficulties ridicoulous at first, though.
As for the story... well, really, there is no story in this game. Two sides are at war, you're on the good side, they're on the bad side. Unlike most modern games, it doesn't contemplate or leave any ambiguity. Here's the story: You're in a battle. You die, or you don't die.
It's simplicity that seems like it should be idiotic, should come off as pretensious, but instead actually seems like an intelligent attempt to stop focusing on the story aspect and instead think about the actual game itself, as if it was just a test base for the giant controller. Which it may have well been, actually.
The story fits the gameplay, and the controls are unique an innovative and will probably never be done again due to the fact that it seems modern gamers are allergic to everything innovative and thus have to cuddle Halo every night before beddie-byes, so I suppose it's a lost cause I'm reviewing such an old game.
But hey, at least I can try.
If you're a fan of mechanized combat and games about such, but are looking for something new, buy this. If you're on the edge about it... I'm not sure you can rent it, but if you can, go ahead and do that. And if you've never even heard of a mech before... hah, good luck playing this game.
All in all, it's a game for a niche market, and that's really all it'll ever be. I suppose until the entire world starts liking things like this there's a doubt there will ever be a sequel.
Ahh, well. Nice that they tried.
~ Tyler ~
---
STEEL BATTALION
Review by Tyler "Eyepatch Cyborg" Ury
Let me start this off by saying I've always had a fond spot for mechs, ever since my older brother introduced me to Gundam Wing when I was about 6. I've always really loved mech games, Gundam games especially, but there was always a hole there. A hole that was left with me knowing I wasn't piloting a mech, I was hitting a button to fire something inside the mech, so maybe I'm biased in my thinking about this game due to it's gigantic obsession with immersion, but I suppose all reviews are subjective and thus this is an opinion, but what review isn't?
Off of that run-on sentence train, I'll start with one little comment: This game, developed by the oddly named "Nude Maker" (don't blame me, blame Japan), partially formed by the developer of games such as the classic "Clock Tower" series, will want to make you kill things. I don't mean in the good way, like motivating you to crush your enemies out of saving your little puppy. No, I mean shooting dogs in the street out of frustration. This. Game. Is. Hard. Along with the huge panel of controls that will confuse you like hell at first, with some slight shining of light the only thing to guide you along, it's not suprising that most of the times someone begins, their random flailing results in them comedically turning on the windshield wipers in an attempt to blast their enemies to bits with the tiny pea-throwing machine that comes strapped by default.
I am tempted to say that there is a steep mountain as a difficulty curve, but it's unfair to say that. No, this game is not a mountain of difficulty curve, it is a difficulty curve that makes God weep. If you fail to eject out of your exploding mech, and your mech (or VT as this game likes to put it,) you will die. No matter how far in the game you are, regardless if you're one shot away from the last mission or just stepped out of the tutorial, this game will beat you with a baseball bat and force you to restart the entire game at the very beginning. Even if you do eject, it's unlikely that you'll have any money to buy a new VT, and thus you'll be forced to start at the beginning.
The worst part?
You can't say, "Oh, I'll just reload from Point A before I fail at Point B." No, this game doesn't work that way. It has save points between missions. If you die, it doesn't just boot you back to the title screen with a slap of the wrist, it deletes that save file. There's no way to get it back, no matter how hard you worked on it. It's like some guy offering you a puppy, and then you raise it and care for it for years and years on end, and then the guy comes back and shoots the puppy, and after you finish grieving, shoots you. This game bitchslaps you if you dare to decide, nay, even think that you don't feel like winning today.
Goddamn is it frustrating.
And yet I love this game so damn much.
You see, there's a certain element of the difficulty. A certain element that afterwards, you realize you can actually take this on. Slowly, but surely, you adjust to the difficulty level. There is nothing more satisfying than tearing through a group of people who have terrorized your previous characters for so long like tissue paper after finally learning the controls and tricks of the large panel.
Did I mention that in depth, by the way? No? Okay. By the way, this game comes with a friggin' huge panel of controls that you'd think would be in a real mech. You have to wonder why these guys aren't designing for the actual military! From designatable com buttons to the buttons to trigger the cockpit, OS of the mech, the viewpoint, gear shift (we're not even onto automatic high-tech military weaponry yet? D'aw,) to the almost clichéd eject button with the glass (actually, plastic) lift-up cover. It's ridicoulous how in-depth these guys were about every little thing on the controller, and you become truly, really, inevtiably immersed in the universe as you blaze your way through mechanized combat vehicle after the other, only to lose your abilities to a sudden shot at the wrong time.
I still think the difficulties ridicoulous at first, though.
As for the story... well, really, there is no story in this game. Two sides are at war, you're on the good side, they're on the bad side. Unlike most modern games, it doesn't contemplate or leave any ambiguity. Here's the story: You're in a battle. You die, or you don't die.
It's simplicity that seems like it should be idiotic, should come off as pretensious, but instead actually seems like an intelligent attempt to stop focusing on the story aspect and instead think about the actual game itself, as if it was just a test base for the giant controller. Which it may have well been, actually.
The story fits the gameplay, and the controls are unique an innovative and will probably never be done again due to the fact that it seems modern gamers are allergic to everything innovative and thus have to cuddle Halo every night before beddie-byes, so I suppose it's a lost cause I'm reviewing such an old game.
But hey, at least I can try.
If you're a fan of mechanized combat and games about such, but are looking for something new, buy this. If you're on the edge about it... I'm not sure you can rent it, but if you can, go ahead and do that. And if you've never even heard of a mech before... hah, good luck playing this game.
All in all, it's a game for a niche market, and that's really all it'll ever be. I suppose until the entire world starts liking things like this there's a doubt there will ever be a sequel.
Ahh, well. Nice that they tried.
~ Tyler ~