Steel Battalion

"The $200 Question Answered"

Capcom’s “Steel Battalion” is one of the most ambitious games in history. It’s also the most expensive. Despite the look on gamers face when they see the price tag attached to this mammoth, one still can’t help but applaud Capcom for this amazing effort. Never before has a game and peripheral been integrated so well, and for this price, they better have been. Dollar signs aside, this is the most addictive “mech” game I have played. Not only that, it’s also the best one ever, even edging out Xbox’s other masterpiece “Mech Assault”.

The most notable aspect of “Steel Battalion” is it’s enormous 40 button controller, designed specifically for this title alone. Complete with foot-pedals and dual joysticks, this controller is the mother of all controllers. From your fuel flow rate switch, to your ignition button, to a radio dial, even an ejection seat button if you find yourself in dire straights. Piloting your mech in “Steel Battalion” should automatically make you capable of driving a panzer. “Steel Battalion” is mech gaming down to the finest detail. Your VT (Vertical Tank) is capable of only so much: over-heating your machine will result in a stall, taking corners with too much speed could tip your mech over, and pushing it beyond its limits could even result its destruction.

Players must learn to utilize the specific details and attributes of the VT’s to be fully accustomed to taking on the overwhelming odds you will face. Yes, “Steel Battalion” does have one of the steepest learning curves ever, but no game gives you such a sense of accomplishment when you finally learn the system inside and out. And once you do, those seemingly impossible missions will be all the easier for you to conquer. “Steel Battalion” spans a wide variety of missions from abandoned cities to mountain ranges and even a beachhead assault in the same vein of D-Day. As you progress, your arsenal of VT’s expands as well as your armory, consisting of well over 15 weapons of mass destruction to carry you through Battalion’s lengthy campaign mode.

Praise aside; don’t be fooled. Only the hardest of hardcore gamers need sign up for “Steel Battalion”, but for the casual gamer this may beyond what they care to spend and invest their time in. Yet, for me, “Steel Battalion” serves as a huge step forward in the ever evolving gaming world. This truly does set the standard for peripheral-based games, and beyond that, is the beginning of what the future of gaming will hold. Where players are no longer on the outside looking in, but are immersed within the game’s world, where barriers and the lines between reality and gaming are truly broken.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/03, Updated 07/04/03