Games Roundup: MechAssault 1 [XBox]

MechAssault (Day 1 Studios / FASA / Microsoft) for the XBox.

I'm a huge fan of the Mechwarrior series and I’ve followed the games faithfully from computer, to virtual arcade game boxes that were fully immersive, to the 16-bit consoles, and back to computer. Now it’s come to the XBox and there’s been a few changes made accordingly.

The original MechWarrior and BattleTech themed games played slowly, with a lot of strategy being necessary in your weapon loadout against specific opponents – as certain weapons and certain mech configurations worked best against others and on certain terrain. You had so many variables, the weight your mech could carry limited the amount of ammo you had, the type of armour you used would affect what kind of damage you took from certain ammunition, and the type of mech you chose (from light to heavy) decided what your battle tactics would be.

MechAssault does away with the tactics side by taking away customization options and giving you unlimited ammunition for missiles, closerange, and longrange weapons making each mech no real different from one another bar the amount of damage their unlimited ammo weapons can do.

Ultimately, it feels very... First Person Shooter-ish, with powerups dotting the land as you blow up exploding barrels, err, I mean random buildings, and continued circle-strafing being the way to destroy most AI controlled opponents.

The single-player is pretty forgettable, dropping you into the same repeated combat scenes and giving you more powerful mechs with each passing round. A couple of days of casual play will let you see the end of it.

Multi-player is definitely where MechAssault perks up, with downloadable content (XBox Live account required) like new mechs, new maps, and game tweaks. The XBox Live system works like a charm, allowing you to pair yourself up with friends on your buddy list and stick to people you know, or get randomly paired up with a few strangers and start blasting away.

Overall, MechAssault is enjoyable, but marred with a lack of controller options. The continued problem I found was the powerups for your weaponry. Each of your weapons can be powered up 3 times, the first level has unlimited ammo and is what you start with, the second and third levels are more powerful and found by rolling over powerups on the ground. As you roll over the powerup, you will switch your weapon type to the new one. There’s the additional annoyance of a lack of Alpha Strike (MechWarrior games have historically allowed an Alpha Strike - the firing of ALL weapons at once). Not having that option to just devastate someone by unloading into them at point blank has definitely marred the game for me. I wouldn't recommend picking it up, but it’s worth a rent for a MechWarrior fan.

MechAssault page on XBox.com

[Ghostsuit]

Well least I'm not going to miss not havign an Xbox for this game. Shame I love mech warrior games but with out the strategy it's probably best I don't play this I recon like you I'd get bored as well.

[Elite]

thats a bit daft they did away with the stratagy element

mechwarrior 3 all the way

[Ghostsuit]

Aye Mech Warrior 3/4 etc So much fun.

[PapaZeb]

Three and Four were definitely the best imho. So much going for 'em and with a nice force feedback joystick you were the bombstacks.

Not having customization really does my head in, and after playing the sequel, isn't something they decided was a problem.
No AlphaStrike felt irritating as well.

[GoddamnElectric]

4 was the dogs danglies. All feared the 3x Clan Gauss Cannon assault =)