Armored Core

"Undoubtedly the BEST mech game for the PSX today, and one of the best games overall!"

To be perfectly honest, before I'd played Armored Core, "mech games" never really interested me. I'd given them a shot, but they were either a little too rigid, a little too simple, or just not fun. But then, I loaded up a friend's copy of Armored Core... and was hooked.

The game's premise is an admittedly simple one. You're a mechanized mercenary, and your services go to the highest bidder. But from that point on, a world of possibilities opens up! You start out with a couple of dollars, and a fairly decent mech, and set out to field some offers from local corporations, and individuals. You go about deciding whether to be good or evil, whether to accept cash or mech parts, etc., all while competing with the other local "Mech mercs" . Depending on which offers you accept, new opportunities become available to you. and as you proceed thru your missions and amass a small fortune, you can completely customize your warrior! You can buyfind machine guns, nail guns, rifles, lasers, swords, mines, rocket launchers, missle launchers, or even a blowtorch to use against your foes! And you can upgrade the mech itself with new arms, legs, tanktreads, "spider legs", you can even chosse what kind of radar to use!

And just in case, for some obscure reason, you manage to get bored with the TONS of unique and challenging levels, (And they range from "Guarding the cargo train" to "Destroying the giant superweapon" to "Maximum property damage for fun and profit"!) there's still the aspect of Armored Core that *insures* it's replayability... the multiplayer mode! You and your friends can customize your own mechs, put them on your memory cards, and duke it out in split screen mode! You can even link up two Playstations and go at it in style!

There's NO good reason not to get this game. The controls are *AWESOME*. After the first five minutes, you'll be flying around darting between buildings like a pro! The graphics are a *bit* dated by now, but they were beautiful then, and still are now! And between the explosions, gunfire, and the voice of whichever system processor you happened to choose for your mech, the sounds leave littlenothing to be desired!

Quite frankly, I'm not even sure why you're still here reading this review... I'm fairly sure this game is a "Greatest Hit" by now, and should be dirt-cheap! Now get out of here! I have some Mech Mercs to fry...

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99