Earthsiege 2

"If things can go boom, you can bet your sweet money someone's gonna make a game about it!"

Sierra's Earthsiege universe loosely gave birth to the Tribes games: Massive online action games involving huge weapons, jet packs and a myriad of smart enemies. Earthsiege 2 is far from that reality, but it makes for a decent mech-based romp especially for noobies of the genre.

Clearly the best part of Earthsiege 2 are the graphics: This game looks unbelievably good for a game this old. When shot robots take location-based damage, so if you shoot them in the arm it will fall off, or their chest will blow up if you shoot them in that area. When parts fall off mechs, or when huge colorful explosions the likes of which no game had seen previous to Earthsiege 2 blow buildings apart, all of the rubble remains on the ground littering the battlefield. The resolution is also decent, with the ability to manually set it at higher or lower levels and unlike in many early 3D games it doesn't make your eyes bleed. The framerate is rock solid throughout, regardless if you're playing on minimum requirements or not which is quite an achievement. Needless to say that the mechs are highly detailed. Players will be able to spot what type of mech is coming towards them from miles thanks to identifying features. You can even easily spot the weapons that the mechs are equipped with!

The sound pales in comparison with the graphics. The explosions sound nice and the weapons are OK but the sound samples are muffled and if you've heard one laser, you've also heard all of the rocket launchers and machine guns that Earthsiege 2 has to offer. Thankfully there aren't any annoying bugs or any fuzzy samples, but "in return" there's also no music present in the battles nor any voiceovers.

Earthsiege 2 follows a basic dogma of game design: Keep it simple. According to this game, if you can drive a car, you can also control a 5-ton robot. The "simulation" aspect of Earthsiege 2 is among the most simplistic in any mech game. The only things you need to keep in mind is that when going up hills mechs tend to slow down. That's about as realistic as it gets. You can freely bump into anything in the game world, and weapons don't ever need reloading. Mysteriously though, the controls in the game aren't as simplistic as the actual piloting. While the game controls decently with the mouse and keyboard a joystick is almost required to get the most out of the flying missions.

Yes gamers, in addition to playing around with mechs on the ground (called HERCS) you can also fly around in a super fast plane called the Razor. The flying mechanics are a little trickier that those of the on-the-ground action but they're nothing to fret about. The Razor, as well as the other mechs, can be heavily equipped with weapons of all sorts in the garage before the mission starts. HERCS also come into several different categories ranging from "light and fast mechs" that can hardly sport any weaponry to the more advanced mechs like Titans, which can take enough ammunition and weapons on board to wipe out a small army. The customization part is quite extensive and freakishly addictive: Parts differ among themselves in size, weight, firing power and even the maximum amount of ammo you get at the start of the mission. Some weapons are (obviously) better suited for some mechs and missions than others but you're free to chose which weapons you like.

The missions themselves are a bit under whelming. Earthsiege 2 features some 50 non-linear missions. Said missions are wrapped into a paper thin story about some evil computer gone mad and a new race of robots ready to kick human ass. Once in the missions however, things start to go downhill pretty quickly: Blowing stuff up with excellent graphics and fun controls is nice, but it's about as long lasting as a lollypop. After destroying the enemy base, or the enemy mechs, for the 40th time things get downright boring, even if the game tries to spice up things by introducing new tile sets or more complex maps featuring more hills and stuff to hide behind. The missions still hardly go beyond the simple, “kill all enemy mechs and/or destroy enemy base”-routine. And when they do happen to be different, they involve escort missions or "protecting supply lines". Those aforementioned missions are so utterly irritating they make your skin crawl: One of the late game missions involves protecting a supply convoy that STUPIDLY goes through the enemy base. Without the possibility of resuplying, you and a small band of warriors are suppose to fend off numerous turrets and enemy mechs while keeping ALL of the friendly robots alive...

... And then, when you're close to the end of the mission, the game inexplicably crashes or doesn't recognize that you've won. Earthsiege 2 is plagued by mission stopping bugs which are utterly INSANE. Mission objectives randomly don't get completed; the game doesn't recognize you've destroyed the WHOLE enemy base when it lies in rubble right before you, etc. Not to mention that Earthsiege 2 also crashes to the desktop more than any other game that was released probably ever: In one hour I might've had as many as 10 crashes.

Earthsiege 2 is the simplest mech-simulation this side of Mechassault, and while it's not a perfect game it's worth a try especially since it's scrubbing the bottom of the bargain bin as we speak. Just make sure you've accumulated enough patience before playing, because otherwise you might do things to your PC you'll regret later.

Gameplay: 5/10
Graphics: 10/10
Sound: 6/10
Overall: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/06