[Pre-TGS 2006] Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire
Hands-on with Bandai's lumbering mech combat; new details, screens and impressions.
Published: September 21, 2006
The Japanese obsession with giant robots is lost on a lot of Western gamers. Oh, we like the idea of taking a hundreds-foot tall lumbering hulk of heavily-armed and armored walking tank out into the middle of a city and blowing the crap out of everything, sure (after all, it plays right into every guy's desire to see stuff blown up), but it's not a staple of our childhood like it is for a good portion of the Japanese public.
Not that it would stop the combined might of the Namco and Bandai publishing and development houses from putting out an endless stream of Gundam-themed games in other countries, of course. The appeal of huge mobile suits locked in futuristic combat may not have universal appeal here, but it is certainly interesting enough that the games keep seeing release, and the PlayStation 3, with its advanced physics mojo, seems like a good place to continue things -- or so think Bandai.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire is best thought of as a next-gen restart. Those that have never seen Gundam, nor played a video game based on it will have no problem getting the gist of the storyline here: the Earth Federation Forces and the Principality of Zeon are at war, with the latter trying to secede from the former causing a bitter, bloody ongoing conflict.
At the heart of the conflict are the Mobile Suits, walking armories built to handle both short- and long-range combat, and the core of Crossfire's gameplay. Whether picking either the Federation of Zeon forces, the game will play out more or less the same, though you'll see it from a different side, of course, and the mecha will be subtly different.
No matter which side you pick, you'll have the option of commanding a squad of Mobile Suits to tackle various missions; including destruction of key landmarks or supply lines in addition to just blowing up everything that moves. The other Suits in your squad can be told to concentrate fire, spread out, dash to the front, halt, fire at will and so on, allowing for a fair bit of flexibility in how missions are handled.
We sadly didn't get a chance to try this out yet, and instead got some hands-on time with a canyon map that had us as a lone combatant up against a small battalion of choppers, tanks and of course rival Mobile Suits. Almost instantly, the team's addition of location-specific damage was obvious. Popping into sniper mode, we targeted the legs of a Mobile Suit and took out his left leg, which caused him to kneel. On another, we unloaded on an arm until he had no weapon to use. On another, we took out the head, blinding him (MS pilots are usually sitting in the torso, so shooting their head means they can only act by radar).
The game this far was fairly sluggish, but we did get a chance to zip around a little and fire away at some of the environment, witnessing buildings break apart into little chunks or built-in bases in the canyon walls crumbling bit by bit as we unloaded on them. Things like close-range sword attacks were a little more complicated, as the analog sticks controlled both torso rotation and where things looked, but an added lock-on feature at least made it fairly easy.
Things ran sluggishly, but we were promised that it would improve before the PlayStation 3 launch, when the game will go on sale. Well know for sure come November.
Not that it would stop the combined might of the Namco and Bandai publishing and development houses from putting out an endless stream of Gundam-themed games in other countries, of course. The appeal of huge mobile suits locked in futuristic combat may not have universal appeal here, but it is certainly interesting enough that the games keep seeing release, and the PlayStation 3, with its advanced physics mojo, seems like a good place to continue things -- or so think Bandai.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire is best thought of as a next-gen restart. Those that have never seen Gundam, nor played a video game based on it will have no problem getting the gist of the storyline here: the Earth Federation Forces and the Principality of Zeon are at war, with the latter trying to secede from the former causing a bitter, bloody ongoing conflict.
At the heart of the conflict are the Mobile Suits, walking armories built to handle both short- and long-range combat, and the core of Crossfire's gameplay. Whether picking either the Federation of Zeon forces, the game will play out more or less the same, though you'll see it from a different side, of course, and the mecha will be subtly different.
No matter which side you pick, you'll have the option of commanding a squad of Mobile Suits to tackle various missions; including destruction of key landmarks or supply lines in addition to just blowing up everything that moves. The other Suits in your squad can be told to concentrate fire, spread out, dash to the front, halt, fire at will and so on, allowing for a fair bit of flexibility in how missions are handled.
We sadly didn't get a chance to try this out yet, and instead got some hands-on time with a canyon map that had us as a lone combatant up against a small battalion of choppers, tanks and of course rival Mobile Suits. Almost instantly, the team's addition of location-specific damage was obvious. Popping into sniper mode, we targeted the legs of a Mobile Suit and took out his left leg, which caused him to kneel. On another, we unloaded on an arm until he had no weapon to use. On another, we took out the head, blinding him (MS pilots are usually sitting in the torso, so shooting their head means they can only act by radar).
The game this far was fairly sluggish, but we did get a chance to zip around a little and fire away at some of the environment, witnessing buildings break apart into little chunks or built-in bases in the canyon walls crumbling bit by bit as we unloaded on them. Things like close-range sword attacks were a little more complicated, as the analog sticks controlled both torso rotation and where things looked, but an added lock-on feature at least made it fairly easy.
Things ran sluggishly, but we were promised that it would improve before the PlayStation 3 launch, when the game will go on sale. Well know for sure come November.
