 Review By: Cameron Morris |
Developer: | FromSoftware |
| Publisher: | Agetec | |
| Genre: | Action | |
| ESRB: | Teen | |
| # Of Players: | 1 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Memory Card | |
| Buy Now: |   |
The way you play the game is path-based, in that you take missions from either army and through this subtly (or not-so-subtly, as the case usually is) influence the eventual outcome of the war. Each path has its own set difficulty, which is the chief reason to experiment with different choices simply because the story isn’t interesting enough to motivate any decisions based on the narrative.
The graphics in the game are adequate, but I wouldn’t call them anything better than that. The robot designs have a very distinct anime flair to them that will be sure to appeal to fans of mecha in general, and the graphics used to present them are fairly solid, but everything else is either drab, boring, or a sordid combination of both. Environments are often entirely nondescript, and the most memorable will often be rooms full of giant crates – no, I’m not kidding – while the least memorable will be...well I can’t think of any specific examples. The camera is kind of wonky from time to time, too, but this may be due to the fact that the game is just so hard to control for newcomers.
The sound is more or less nondescript where the graphics are bland – the sound effects are solid, albeit dated-feeling, and everything clanks and booms where it is supposed to, but the music is just ridiculous. Overall the game’s sound lacks any kind of impact, that sense that something big and important just happened, whether due to tinny-sounding explosions or a soundtrack that is impossible to get into. Again, while adequate, the sound in this game is really just relegated to the status of white noise once the bullets start flying, and that’s never a good thing.
The controls are undoubtedly easy to use for someone who has been playing these games every year, but for a newcomer they feel like trying to use chopsticks to put together a bicycle. There are two settings for the controllers, the first being the more classic setup that will feel so alien and unfamiliar to newcomers, and the second somewhat like a first-person shooter with all of the ultra-quick responsiveness taken out. Both setups are sluggish, overcomplicated, and in general just too unwieldy to even attempt to learn for the average player.
But if you’re one of the hardcore, you don’t care about these things – you’ve been dealing with this stuff since before this website was even a fervent dream. You care about the ability to add new parts to your AC, to tweak the performance of said parts, and to find the perfect balance of everything to make a machine of destruction as close to unstoppable as is physically possible. Well, you are indeed in luck. You can customize nearly anything on your mech, from the head to the legs to its radar to its missile launchers to just about anything you please, choosing from literally dozens of parts that are all heavily tweakable, allowing you to allot more resources to specific areas of your machine’s performance in a way that really does affect how your mech moves, fights, and keeps itself from exploding. So yes, that part of the game is very much alive, and you will be able to build a mech that will fit any given situation. The problem, here, is that the building of all these many mechs is almost absolutely necessary – how many missions will you come across that require the more or less complete rebuilding of your machine, just to handle this one boss enemy who can kill you in twenty seconds? Nearly all of them. You can save five templates for your AC, which is good, but you’re going to need every one of them, and even then you may end up spending countless hours tweaking, tweaking, and tweaking some more. This is the perfect example of a good thing made necessary and then carried out to such a degree as to be insane.
It’s worth mentioning that there is a multiplayer mode, but only in the most nominal sense, as you can either play against one human opponent or three computer ones. Against the computer you’re most likely to be destroyed, and the average person you find to play with you is not going to be able to figure out the controls soon enough to present any sort of threat, unless you’re picking it up together in which you may have some fun times ahead as you laugh at your own attempts to learn the controls. It’s a good feeling, even, but the fact that it’s the most fun I can imagine a newbie having with this game is just sad.
Bottom Line:
You know, part of me wants to hate this game's guts, not just because it is so brutally difficult and out-and-out boring, but because what should be the most intriguing part of the game - the outfitting and tweaking of your machine - is made necessary and tedious to the point that it doesn't matter anymore, you'll want to play something else. That said, I can't say that the game is out-and-out awful, it's just not meant for the average gamer. Or the vast majority of gamers, as the case may be. This is a game that's meant for the hardcore, no questions asked, and if you try to get in without your ID it's going to slap you upside the head and remind you that you just don't belong. The game makes no concession to people who just like giant robots, so my score should be taken with a bit of salt by everyone: if you are an Armored Core fan, feel free to add about three points to my score, because that is what your experience will be. If you're not, subtract three, and that will be your experience. The true merit of it lies somewhere in between, in the deep valley of mediocrity.
| Pros: | Cons: | Final Score: |
|---|---|---|
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| 5.2 |
Posted: 2007-03-04 09:45:32 PST