Armored Core 2

"The geniuses at From Software did it again!"

The best mech series ever comes on strong to the PS2! It takes place place 67 years after Armored Core: MoA. It's no longer on Earth but on a war on Mars. Customization is the best part. There's over 2.5 billion possible different AC's.

Story- 8.5/10
35 missions to play through the entire game. But the first time through there's no way to go through all of them. You can pick which AC companies you can side with and whose missions you want to accept. Earth is a long forgotten planet. All of it's resources were used up; something that may actually happen. All of the corporations look to Mars to begin a new life. Someone must conquer.

Control-8/10
Overboost rules! If you press the right analog stick you boost 3x faster than normal. But other than that the controls are still slow and sluggish. Turning is slow and unless your a Vet to the series the learning curve is very hard. You have up to four weapons: a right hand weapon, it can be a laser rifles, machine guns and bazookas. In the left hand you can have a sword or a shield. And two back weapons which can be missiles, chainguns, rockets, mortars, energy weapons and many others.

Graphics-9/10
Very sweet background graphics. But even sweeter are the AC's. You can see every detail and how the different guns look. There's many different colors and now you can build several AC's and have them all in your AC garage. You can build a bunch of them and show them off to your friends.

Replay Value-10/10
This is where the game really shines. It practically never ends. It may start to get old but the 2 player mode is tons of fun. None of my friends own this so they're no match for me. You can keep building and customizing you mech. There's over 200 parts in the game. Some are hidden in missions. You can replay the missions you didn't fight after you beat the mission mode.

Gameplay-9/10
The games modes are Single Player Mission, 2 player Vs., and Arena Mode. The first two are self explanatory but Arena mode is one on one Deathmatch style bouts with 50 AC's. You start at 50 and proceed all the way to one. Gathering useful secret parts on your way through.

Buy/Rent?
Rent this game first. Most people love it some hate it. If you go back to the first AC definitely get pick this up!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/16/01, Updated 08/16/01