A Crack in the Armor
Armored Core finally hits next-gen systems, but there's little about it that actually feels next-gen.
Published: April 14, 2007
I have a huge soft spot for From Software's Armored Core series. It was one of the first persistent series in the US that actually languished in the fact that it gave robot customization nuts something to geek out over. It was clunky, slow, and plodding, but you could build kick ass mechs, maaaaan. Fans of the franchise have been notoriously forgiving, even going so far as to mostly excuse the fact that long after the original PS one had adopted two analog sticks, the game was still using the shoulder buttons to look up and down. That's love.
But with the move to the PlayStation 3 and earlier next-gen efforts on the 360 like Chromehounds showing that From Software could make something that was detailed and different -- especially online -- expectations have changed. With a dearth of mech fighting games in general hitting consoles, Armored Core 4 could have been one of those truly visceral experiences that finally pushed the series beyond the niche audience that forgave it for the clunkier roots and into the limelight as something worth picking up a PS3 for.
Except that didn't happen. The online is barebones, the storyline as wafer thin and throwaway as ever and the missions... well, they actually get good and fun, but you'll have to slog through double-digit numbers of them before you start to get hooked. That's not a game that entices newcomers, it's a game that scares away loyalists. What really sucks is that you can tell From tried to make the game better in some ways, lopping off some of the more half-baked concepts from past games and streamlining things into a skinnier presentation that just gets you into the action.
Problem is, that action is often painfully short-lived. There are indeed missions that can be beaten faster than it takes to load them. Think about that for a second; you're either waiting a long time for a mission or the mission is unintentionally hilariously short. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but no combination of the two can make for a rewarding experience. Not all of the missions are like that, but many of them follow a sort of cut-and-paste formula in a different locale. When a noticeable chunk of the missions are spent standing in place and trying to blow everything out of the sky (and I get it, these are missions for when you bulk up and have a massive barrage of surface-to-air shots at your disposal, though that doesn't happen early in the game for most of the Nexts), that's not really a good thing.
I'm not ripping on the missions as a whole. Granted, you'll have to go through almost half of them before the first couple really exciting or different ones crop up, and again, you'll actually play through a couple nearly identical ones before getting to some of the more memorable (and admittedly quite fun) tasks, but even here there are issues. There's no way to quick-restart a mission. If you're doing poorly, you can either press start and quit out or just get killed but the result is the same: you're punted all the way back to the mission select screen and forced to watch the briefing and load screens again (though, yes, you can at least skip the former).
It should also be noted that the days of the slower, more energy-conscious Next combat are officially over with the arrival of AC4. Though the speed of the games had been every so slowly ratcheting up, the mech combat here is almost impossibly quick. Fights transition from ground to air quickly, zig-zagging quick boost dashes are the norm and everything finally has the punch of one of those Macross or Gundam mega-clashes. Impressively, you'll find that you can pull off these moves with little to no effort too, as everything from quick dashes to extended skating across the land or hovering through the air to switching out weapons is done with the shoulder buttons. Firing off shoulder-mounted weapons and either hand's equipped arsenal is all done with the face buttons. This means that you can -- if nothing else -- at least look around while you're busy dash-dodging incoming fire. Lock-ons are done with L3 button, so you can move and click at the same time.
The increased speed and agility help to further expand the different types of mechs you can build, since throwing tank treads or multiple legs on your ride fundamentally changes how you fight and move. In fact, the customization in general is still nearly as deep as it's always been, though From clearly tried to make it more accessible to the mass market. How successful they actually were is up for debate, but it's likely that the purists will feel pangs of longing for the old ultra-detailed system while newcomers won't know just how much things have been changed.
But with the move to the PlayStation 3 and earlier next-gen efforts on the 360 like Chromehounds showing that From Software could make something that was detailed and different -- especially online -- expectations have changed. With a dearth of mech fighting games in general hitting consoles, Armored Core 4 could have been one of those truly visceral experiences that finally pushed the series beyond the niche audience that forgave it for the clunkier roots and into the limelight as something worth picking up a PS3 for.
Except that didn't happen. The online is barebones, the storyline as wafer thin and throwaway as ever and the missions... well, they actually get good and fun, but you'll have to slog through double-digit numbers of them before you start to get hooked. That's not a game that entices newcomers, it's a game that scares away loyalists. What really sucks is that you can tell From tried to make the game better in some ways, lopping off some of the more half-baked concepts from past games and streamlining things into a skinnier presentation that just gets you into the action.
Problem is, that action is often painfully short-lived. There are indeed missions that can be beaten faster than it takes to load them. Think about that for a second; you're either waiting a long time for a mission or the mission is unintentionally hilariously short. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but no combination of the two can make for a rewarding experience. Not all of the missions are like that, but many of them follow a sort of cut-and-paste formula in a different locale. When a noticeable chunk of the missions are spent standing in place and trying to blow everything out of the sky (and I get it, these are missions for when you bulk up and have a massive barrage of surface-to-air shots at your disposal, though that doesn't happen early in the game for most of the Nexts), that's not really a good thing.
I'm not ripping on the missions as a whole. Granted, you'll have to go through almost half of them before the first couple really exciting or different ones crop up, and again, you'll actually play through a couple nearly identical ones before getting to some of the more memorable (and admittedly quite fun) tasks, but even here there are issues. There's no way to quick-restart a mission. If you're doing poorly, you can either press start and quit out or just get killed but the result is the same: you're punted all the way back to the mission select screen and forced to watch the briefing and load screens again (though, yes, you can at least skip the former).
It should also be noted that the days of the slower, more energy-conscious Next combat are officially over with the arrival of AC4. Though the speed of the games had been every so slowly ratcheting up, the mech combat here is almost impossibly quick. Fights transition from ground to air quickly, zig-zagging quick boost dashes are the norm and everything finally has the punch of one of those Macross or Gundam mega-clashes. Impressively, you'll find that you can pull off these moves with little to no effort too, as everything from quick dashes to extended skating across the land or hovering through the air to switching out weapons is done with the shoulder buttons. Firing off shoulder-mounted weapons and either hand's equipped arsenal is all done with the face buttons. This means that you can -- if nothing else -- at least look around while you're busy dash-dodging incoming fire. Lock-ons are done with L3 button, so you can move and click at the same time.
The increased speed and agility help to further expand the different types of mechs you can build, since throwing tank treads or multiple legs on your ride fundamentally changes how you fight and move. In fact, the customization in general is still nearly as deep as it's always been, though From clearly tried to make it more accessible to the mass market. How successful they actually were is up for debate, but it's likely that the purists will feel pangs of longing for the old ultra-detailed system while newcomers won't know just how much things have been changed.