Steel Battalion: Line of Contact

"Perfect Concept, Perfect Ballance and Gameplay but..."

This would have been the greatest game ever made, were it not for the terrible netcode and Capcom's complete unwillingness to actually DO anything about it.

Steel Battalion takes place in a not-so-far-away apocalyptic future, in the roaring 80's, well the 2080's. This game can be classified as Ocean City Conflict 3, as there were two preceeding before it, one in 2080 and one in 2082. The game itself takes place in 2084, there's no indication of how long each turn is 'real time' but one could assume anywhere upwards of a month, which is semi-likely given the previous installment's use of time.

Reminder: This game is ONLINE ONLY.

Gameplay: 10/10

There are two modes of play, both of which are well executed. These modes are free mode and campaign mode. In free mode, one doesn't have any virtual property and therefore can re-use all VTs that have at one point had in their Campaign mode hangar. Free Mode is more laid back, but also has people who simply don't want to waste their time on Campaign mode, which is broken. However is comprised mostly of newbies and mediocre players.

Campaign mode only worked the first time around, even since then the game's money system (supply points) has been heavily inflated, making them essentially useless except for bin purchases, where everyone just camps the bin anyway and unless you have great timing, you're probably not getting anything. A majority of all Campaign players are 'sharks' which will chew a newbie into little-ity-bity-peices. Very rarely will you find someone who plays both Free Mode and Campaign.

Small point: If you forget to eject your pilot data is wiped and you lose all your VTs in Campaign. In free mode you lose your pilot data, but keep all the VTs you've 'touched'.

Graphics: 10/10

The game supports 720p and does so beautifully. There is so much detail one wouldn't actually notice unless you actually look for it (such as the cockpit closing). There's no complaints here.

Sound: 10/10

This game supports surround sound. I personally don't have surround sound, but I hear its great. The standard sounds are fine too, you can hear distant foot steps if you listen quietly and still and hear all the shots being fired if you're close enough.

Replay: 10/10

Its more-or-less an online mmorpg so replayability is all that is available, there's no explanation nessesary.

I'm sure you're wondering, if everything is perfect, why did it get a 7? Well put simply, the netcode stinks. The game offers 5v5 play, but rarely (never, outside of Japan) will you find 9 other players willing to deal with the kind of latency, lag, dropouts and such to play in the 5v5. Or even 9 other players who can get into the room without dropping. Or even 9 players! 4v4s are a possiblility, but plagued with lag and droppouts unless you know the other people well enough that this won't happen. Which means you'll be stuck playing 3v3 in Campaign, as thats the minimum required to play campaign, which can STILL take forever to start a match and is STILL latent most of the time. This makes LoC just a terrible experience unless you have a great connection. Additionally, Capcom announced a '90 day fix' when the game first came out and complaints started to occur, but this NEVER happened, Capcom changed their stance and said its your ISP's fault, which is wrong in lots of cases as there are people with T1 lines that don't function properly in LoC THAT is why the game gets a 7.

What does a 7 mean to me? It means the game is great but some points make it flawed, 8 would be less flawed, its really a 7.5 but the netcode reaaaallly hurts the final score.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/02/05