Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon

"The Review of the Century!"

Mobile Suit Federation Vs. Zeon.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation vs. Zeon is the 3rd US PS2 Gundam game released. It is arguably the best in the series, when it came out. It contains the Arcade mode, which still can be found in arcades today; a Versus mode where you can make situations, or play with or against a friend; and MSG: Fvz also contains the Campaign Mode, where you pick either the EFSF(Federation) or the Principality of Zeon. You then pick battles to fight on a map, and you get new and improved suits as you play.

Okay, enough background information. Now to the graphics. They look very nice, but they tend to slow down in the water. Also, the smoke and lighting and particle effects are extremely cool in a heated battle. Great detail seems to have been taken in making the Mobile Suits 3D. If you look at them, you can see thruster burns, which side its on, due to the insignia that is shown. When you use the melee weapons, if you jump and land, you see the heat move a bit from the weapon. My only gripe is the translation of some of the locations on Earth at which battles can take place. For example, New York is New Yark in the game, Grand Canyon is Great Canyon.

The gameplay is probably the best part of it. There are at least 2 dozen suits you can use. The controls are good and its easy to get the hang of piloting. The campaign mode is very good, but I went through both campaigns in about 10 hours. The difficulty of the game varies each mission. Some missions, the odds are stacked against you. In others, its a walk in the park to complete missions. Each side has different missions to complete, which tend to follow the series in location. The Campaign mode only follows the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, none of the side stories or spin offs are included in this game. If you saw the first Gundam series, Mobile Suit Gundam, you recognize some of the characters you have for allies or enemies. Those include Char, Amuro, Ramba Ral, The Black Tri-Star, Kai, Hayato, and so on. These guys are harder to kill, so you’ll have to earn those kills. The weapons are varied in power and seem realistic, if you can call a beam rifle realistic. A machine gun won’t kill an opponent with one shot, while a 180mm cannon, might be able to get a one hit kill. All the weapons have been used in the Mobile Suit Gundam series. No one mobile suit is overly powerful, to the point where nobody can defeat it. The only exclusion to that is the Zeon and Federation heroes, which have huge AP and can’t easily be defeated like other units in this game. For example, Char’s Zaku II needs a lot more hits to take down than a normal Zaku II.

The music is nothing to write home about, majority of it comes from Mobile Suit Gundam. There are a few songs in there which are very, very good. Most of the songs appear only when your fighting somewhere specific.

Replayability is nothing to be worried about in this game. With the Campaign Mode, Arcade Mode, and the Vs. Mode, this game shouldn’t get boring for a while. There are even incentives to beat the campaign mode. If you beat both campaigns, you will unlock the Extra mode, which you can find out.

Okay, now for the scores

Graphics-9/10
Sound- 7/10(The songs give it a few bonus points
Gameplay- 10/10
Controls- 10/10
Replayability- 10/10

Total score: 9.2 out of ten.

Recommendation: If you are a fan of Mobile Suit Gundam, this game is an instant pick up at 20.00 US dollars. If you don't follow or even heard of Mobile Suit Gundam, a rental probably would be your best bet to determine if you really want this or not.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/04