MechAssault : Web Wombat: Games

Not only will you have to face off against diabolically tough battlemechs, you'll also get to take on choppers, vans, missile trucks, toaster ovens, defensive perimetre turrets, elementals, rogue states, resolution 1441 and my personal favourite - buildings.

Based in the FASA universe, the latest game from Microsoft's burgeoning games division has one of the coolest game worlds on offer, one that gives new meaning to the term 'totally destructable environment'.

Rather than just code a direct port of the popular Mechwarrior 4 title, Mech Assault (MA) could be classified as a 'console' version of the game, and before the PC 'sim' brigade throw up their collective arms in opposition, let me say this: MA is tip top!

MA pits the Wolf's Dragoons, your posse of street-wise robot gangsters, against the Word of Blake, a bunch of hoighty-toighty, elitist aristocrats, colloquially known as the Wobs.

What first seems like a routine 'drop-in, crush the Wob snobs, drop-out' exercise, soon turns into a full-blown war, with the good old Dragoons on the back foot.

The game starts off with the player becoming one of the first 'mechs to drop onto the planet Helios, where the Word of Blake boys seem to have set up a rather tasty defensive system. Your job is pretty simple: kill 'em all.

Mech Assault is played out entirely in third-person perspective and while I was expecting this to hinder some of the more delicate aiming controls, it's actually pretty good.

Would you like volumetric lighting with that?

Just like Halo and other Xbox FPS titles, the left analogue stick controls strafing and fore/aft movement, while the right stick takes care of aiming.

One benefit from using the third-person perspective is that you get to watch the 'mechs stomp around what is a seriously sexy gameworld.

And, it has be said, there truly are few things more satisfying than systematically taking down a massive 20 storey structure.

I suppose, for one, buildings don't fight back. Heh. But it's the eye candy that goes with it that adds to the interest levels. Strafe slowly around a large utilitarian building, firing off quad medium lasers, and marvel as each hit creates a large pock mark, sometimes followed by flames and smoke.

After a wee while, the building will be looking a little ill. And then, if you've got 'em, unload a volley of missiles at the once-stately construction and KABLOOEY - down she comes.

Intriguingly, if you take down a building, or bridge, and there are enemies in close proximity, they'll be heavily damaged too - rock on! Complementing all this mindless destruction are some seriously spicy visuals.

Sure, they're not ground-breaking, but they do their job well, and some of the weapons effects are just gorgeous. There's plenty of volumetric, transparent lighting effects going on, while the particle system offers good smoke and explosion visuals.

Even the way the mechs move looks good, and the light that streams out of their core reactors once destroyed is a particularly fancy effect.

Using Arnie voice: "Need a light?"

Combat, or even just firing weapons for the sake of it, is easy to get to grips with, and very hard to put down, thanks in large part to the increasing levels of difficulty in the single player campaign.

There's always a target reticle of some form on-screen for ballistic weapons, plus much of the weaponary on offer has some sort of homing ability, including most missile-based weapons and also the good old particle projection cannon, aka PPC.

The gameplay in the campaign is pretty straightforward, and the first few levels will be a push-over for most gamers. Kill a convoy here, blow up a building there, stomp on some few infantry regiments - literally.

Thankfully there's plenty of variety in the missions, and together with a wide array of battle 'mechs, it's helps to keep the game appealing.

By about the sixth mission, things will begin to get quite troublesome, but as the difficulty level increases, so will your strategies, use of cover and, most importantly, your use of powerups.

Found after destroying enemy 'mechs and sometimes in ruined buildings, powerups add a good dose of arcadiness to the game, but without ruining other aspects.

All mechs have three weapons each, categorised by ballistic (machine gun-type), missile (lock on missile-type) and energy (laser-type). Each can be improved by collecting the corresponding power up, but these are limited, so once you've fired off your 150 bullets, you'll revert to your weaker, but unlimited base weapons.

Every kid should have a PPC

Some of the weapons include the PPC, pulse and standard lasers, autocannons, guass rifles, plus the crossbow, javelin and deadly hammer missiles.

It is also possible to collect multiple power ups of the same type.

Ergo, if you come across a ballistic power up and don't use too much of it, then manage to find a couple of others, your autocannon will be powered up two or three times over - or uber-powerful - and the changes are visual too.

Again, it's quite arcadey, but it meshes with the game's fast-paced action rather nicely.

Sometimes, the best way to get past a particularly difficult section is to powerup one specific weapon - using only one or two other weapons - then unleashing a devastating volley of fiery carnage upon usually very suspecting foes.

Other handy tricks at your disposal - depending on which 'mech you pick - include cloaking shields, missile decoys (chaff), jump-jets and radar jamming. While they do come in to play quite a lot, they're not exactly make or break additions, and good evasive skills are more likely to save your metallic hide.

Coded by a team of talented developers known as Day:1:Studios, Mech Assault is arguably one of the most playable big-bot games of our time. Not so much a particularly brilliant game in any one respect - though the visuals are sugar-plum sweet - it's more a sum-of-all-parts game, where everything gels nicely and provides for great entertainment.

Some may suggest that the single player game is too short, but I believe it's difficulty is sufficient for at least a few weeks worth of joy. And, even if you do tire of "reorganising" cities and stomping through forests, you can always take advantage of the multiplayer modes, which include online and system link capabilities.

Mech Assault will make a fine addition to any games library, and it's one of those games that will always be dragged out of the 'game retirement' closet beacuse it's just plain old-fashioned, no-nonsense fun. If I was to describe it in two words, I'd say this: Totally Destructable Environments.

Game: MechAssault
System: Xbox
Players: 1-16
Memory Card: Yes
Developer: Day:1:Studios
Distributor: Microsoft

Rating: 80%

(Ratings Key/Explantion)

MechAssault is on the shelves now.

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