Steel Battalion

"The joy of mechs"

Well, Vertical Tanks not mechs, but that's just splitting armoured hairs. This is a game that has 'niche' written all over it, just underneath the high £130 price tag which may push casual gamers away.. You may have noticed (or not noticed) the lack of mass advertising campaigns, no short-sighted and naive reviews in sunday newspaper supplements and no in-store promotions.
There is a reason for this apparent corporate suicide. Capcom weren't doing this to reach the top of the sales charts, reflected in the limited number of units available and by the silly money it reaches on eBay (although the re-release with the online expansion Line of Contact has put a few more units on the market), but to take the next step in interactivity.

Once you have the controller out of the (quite impressive) box and plugged in, the sense of anticipation as you sit there, like the calm before the storm, is incredible. The main menu arrives, accompanied by some generic (but pleasant) military music that wouldn't be out of place in The Rock. Getting more excited now. Providing you've read the manual, you shouldn't do too bad on your first go. But bear in mind, this game has hardcore imprinted upon it, so dying several times is all part of the learning curve.

MechAssault this ain't.

Every aspect of the game is striving for realism, you are stuck inside the cockpit for the duration, but this adds to the ''very cool'' factor via the impressive startup sequence, which takes up 1/8 of the controller's buttons. Once the thing is in motion the ''very cool'' factor goes through the roof, with the screen shuddering with every step you take. The sound effects are very atmospheric, with the sounds of your engine whirring and hydraulics hissing quietly beneath the dakka-dakka-dakka BOOM!! Whirr-kurchunk, whirr-kurchunk of the battle going on around you.

There have been concerns that the graphics doesn't quite live up to expectations, but this is only partially true. The grainy visuals are due to the interference from the video camera mounted onto the front of the VT, which is projected into the cockpit (no all-around vision ala Mechwarrior). But, there is some pop-up, but it's a small price to pay.

Once you get your head around the controls, the gameplay is enormous. Mastering the weapons (which are firmly entrenched in the real world, with only the railgun standing out against the cannons, machine guns and missiles) and the VTs in all their combinations will take serious time investment, although it is worth investing in a decent char/table set up to prevent crippling posture.
Unfortunately, the AI of the rest of your squad does leave something to be desired. They often stand still for no reason, walk backwards suddenly, leading to some drastic moves to prevent collision. As a result, you have to do a disproportionate amount of work compared to the other pilots in your squad.

On the face of it, there doesn't seem to be much replay value with only 12 missions, but the controller and realism will bring the hardcore mech-fetishists back again and again.

The only reasons that I couldn't give this 10 is because of the graphics pop-up (which is very apparent when approaching big buildings), and the lack of missions (although the 12 are re-hashed to play through again using better VTs). There are other minor gripes, such as the lack of 3rd person views when watching replays and the lack of custom soundtracks even though you can get a boom box for the cockpit (this was fixed for Line of Contact). But these issues aren't enough to drop a whole 10% of the mark.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/04