Mech Assault (XBX)
By Susie Vee

PLATFORM: Xbox

PUBLISHER: Microsoft

DEVELOPER: Day 1 Studios

GENRE: Mech Shooter

ESRB: Teen

SCORE:

If there’s a genre that generally seems a little too SciFi channel for us game gals, it’s got to be anything involving giant robots. We don’t know, it just seems like the ultimate toy-truck-in-the-sandbox experience to us. All those crazy Japanese cartoons with the girls in little school outfits hanging with their giant robot buddies don’t help either.

That being said, MechAssault, part of the endlessly popular Mech Warrior series, has gotten a lot of positive press as a great proof-of-concept for the Xbox Live. It’s far more arcade-oriented than some of the more sim-like games in this genre, and it’s fast-paced and lively. At least as fast-paced as a 50-foot robot gets.

There’s a simple single-player campaign, in which you’ll fight soldiers, defend friends and, of course, square off against other giant robots. Despite pretty graphics and lots of interactivity, it’s really just there to let you practice for online games.

You’ll need to go through at least a good deal of the single-player game to acquaint yourself with the different mechs and weapons you’ll find online. If you don’t you’ll end up like we did – fighting seven hulking robotic Godzillas in what looked like the equivalent of a Volkswagen Beetle with legs.

Online games were uniformly fast-paced and action-packed, but often devolved into mechs strafing around one another, firing missiles until one explodes. Not a lot of strategy overall.

We especially liked the highly destructible urban environments, which feature lots of amusing ways to destroy buildings. Pretty much anything can be blown up, often revealing power-ups of various kinds.

The single-player game is surprisingly hard, even in the early missions. Your mech can take a lot of damage, but armor power-ups are few and far between. Once enemy mechs come on the scene, you’ll be involved in lengthy battles with them, as they don’t go down too easily.

While your commander, who issues orders while you trek around the great outdoors, is a take-charge female, pretty much everything else about this game screams “geeky boy time.” If you can put aside the natural inclination to shy away from giant robot games, or if that’s just your thing, then by all means give MechAssault a try.