Mech sim games.

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Been on a mech game vibe recently... Playing the Mechwarrior 4 series again. Unfortunately I've just about played it to death over the years.

Anyone know any good mecha sim games out there? Any in development? Anyone else missing them as much as I am?

Why did they have to drop mechwarrior 5 in favor of that mechassault stuff? Bah!

 

[jonesy]

Have you tried Heavy Gear II? It's the best mech sim that ever was. And it still looks pretty good.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Have you tried Heavy Gear II? It's the best mech sim that ever was. And it still looks pretty good.

Never tried it... will have an ebay for it and see if I can dig up a copy...

Thanks for the suggest!

 

[Captain Tagon]

Well, depending on how much you feel like spending, there is the XBox game Steel Battallion. Comes with something close to a 200 button controller if I'm remembering correctly. Even if I'm not that thing is huge.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Saw Steel Batalion - does look kinda funky, but the huge price tag of the controller has put me off... a bit too much!

Picked up a copy of Heavy Gear 2 on ebay for £3... now I'll have the joys of trying to make it work on an XP machine. Should be fun!

Wish someone would write a new mech game. Ah well. It'll happen sometime, I guess.

 

[Cergorach]

How about mechwarrior 2 and 3 (plus expansions)?
Have you tried the unofficial expansions?
Have you looked around for Mech Mods of other games? I hear there's a battlefield Mod using mechs...

 

[Rackhir]

Are you just looking for shoot'em ups? There is the Armored Core series for the PS2, at least 3-4 game in that series. There is also Front Mission 4 which is a tactical turn based system. The sort of game I prefer for mech games, since you can concentrate more on using the mechs and their various systems rather than how accurately you can aim.

 

[spider_minion]

I'd LOVE to see a MechWarrior 5, having played MW4: Mercenaries and some tabletop Battletech lately. Unfortunately I haven't heard much in the way of new mech games coming. But at least I can tell you about many of the games that are out - I'm a big fan of the genre.

MechCommander 2 is a good mech RTS (though I never finished it). There is a lot of room for customization.

I've played a lot of Armored Core. The 9th game of the series will be released in Augest and the 10th is in development. The series is pretty strong, except so little changes from one game to the next. Armored Core 2: Another Age and Armored Core 3 were both quite good. I think the original was the best . . . but its a little too dated right now. For any of these games, you'll spend about half your time in the mechlab (there is a HUGE amount of customization) and the other half actually doing missions. The mechs are the fast and agile anime variety rather than the lumbering juggernauts of MechWarrior.

Front Mission 4 is decent, but way too slow paced. The battles seem to take forever and there are strang parallels with conventional RPGs (like the repair packs that are like healing spells . . . what's up with that?) I didn't get too far into it, but the story was quite interesting.

Zone of the Enders 2 is a great action game with very heavy anime influences (including plenty of cinematics) but lacks any mech customization. Not really a sim.

Robot Alchemic Drive is a bizarre adaptation of 80's mecha anime, complete with some intentionally bad voice acting. It's very, very different from the MW games . . . I'm only mentioning it becuase I love the game so much!

There are alos plenty of games based on Gundam anime, but they're not supposed to be all that great.

Looking on Gamespot . . . there is a game called SLAI: Steel Lancer Arena International coming out at the end of the year, and AC: Formula Front coming out sooner for the PSP. Can't say much about these, though.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Thanks, some cool stuff here!

Mechcommander 1 & 2 were good... Liked them a lot and finished both. The 2nd felt a bit unfinished, but was still fun.

Unfortunately, MW5 was canned in favour of the Mechassault series. Won't be resurfacing anytime soon.

Had a hunt for MW mods, but they're mostly multiplayer, which isn't really my bag. Hadn't really looked at mods on other games.


It sounds like it might be time to pick up some console games. Got an Xbox and a PS2 sitting around at home - neither of which have seen much use... Been checking out some reviews with the power of google.

Front Mission certainly sounds interesting. Although everyone seems to agree about the pacing issues in the current one.

Armoured core seems worth checking out. Saw quite a few people complaining about the control system, but sure I can get my head around that?

Zone of the enders might be fun. Although I'd describe my tastes as more simulation than action/shooter - generally get that fix from FPS.

Robot Alchemic Drive does sound different. The remote idea is kinda cool. Does it work well?

 

[Rackhir]

Front Mission certainly sounds interesting. Although everyone seems to agree about the pacing issues in the current one.

I never had any problems with the pacing, but like I said, turn based giant robot strategy games are my favorite. The one thing I did find slightly frustrating is that it does jump between two story lines, so you'd be going along, pumping up your char and mech and then you're back 5 steps with the other group. The mech customization is definitely the heart of the game and there are some interesting strategies you can employ. The Sensor unit equiped mechs will let your missile equiped units, target units within sensor range of the sensor equiped mech, from anywhere on the board. So you can have X&Y just sitting there and raining death without ever being engaged.