Okay, new topic.
I just played Armored Core For Answer today and found it to be okay. It isn't quite as good as the old PS1 games and the controls aren't beasts like the PS2 games, also the accessibility isn't difficult either. The PS2 AC games made me feel as though the only way to stand a chance was to have played and beaten the previous game, while I applaud the design team for giving returning players nice levels of difficulty it left n00bs feeling overwhelmed.
This isn't to say those are bad games, on the contrary. I loved the graphics and the realism they put in. Granted the control felt too wonky and over complicated but it could be forgiven if you could play well.
AC4 was just awful. I played only a small bit of it and found it to be slow, clunky and didn't draw me in like any of the others.
This game however, while having annoying tutorials at the start and the controls need some playing around with to find one config of the three that you like, was fun. Once I had found a control configuration I was happy with I found moving to be easy, fast, and most importantly, fun. The battles can be very fast paced, feeling more as though you are watching an anime than playing a game.
So why am I doing a little review of this game?
1) I love Mechs.
and 2) I love the Armored Core series despite the slim number of its games I've had actual fun with.
All of this got me to thinking about giant robots and Mechs.
I love Mechs, especially some of the Mechs in Mechwarrior
(Never played the game, saw designs and liked them), and I'm a fan of the Metal Gear Mechs.
Giant Robots however, I don't care for.
Is there a difference? A resounding yes is the answer to that question.
Giant Robots
(GR) usually are quite human and even have hands with fingers and use seperate guns and knives and swords and whatnot. Mechs have all their weaponry as built in equipment and generally lack a major humanoid apperance apart from bipedal legs.
(Although they don't always have to be bipedal)GR hands are a problem for me because hands are precision instruments of the human body. Adding one to a machine and getting it to carry out delicate opperations is an almost impossible task, especially with something that big. GRs tend to be lightning quick and seem more like armored people rather than machines that
must weigh over several billion tons.
Mechs however tend to be clunky, move slow and by this they seem more realistic. Nothing that big and heavy would move so fast unless it had some rockets on it.
(I'll get to this in the new AC game in a sec) Mechs seem to almost always rely on their firepower to carry them through battle and thats fine with me, it's a two legged tank, it should be able to take some pounding in a fight. In the new game the ACs move slowly and the only way to really move quickly is to use your boosters. This is great and allows you to either move slowly and carefully or zip through battlefields like you own the place. I liked that.
But Kalo, you might say,
Armored Core has you controling a type of Giant Robot you just said you hate. So how can you like it?Good point, AC does do that. But it also allows for a
LOT of customization of your Armored Core unit, allowing you to make it a bipedal Giant Robot, or a Mech with laser cannons for arms and tank treads for legs, or the reverse jointed legs, or the four leg type that moves like a spider, etc. So I often opt for designing my unit more like a Mech, without needing a seperate machine gun held by humanoid, robot hands.
Now of course I'm not trying to say that a machine cannot have humanoid hands and fingers
if they do it properly. I enjoy staring at my hand and watching the way my muscles move and interact with one another under my skin, it's a little creepy but still awesome and inspiring. I believe the only way to properly produce a robotic hand would be to simulate the human design as much as possible. However when you try to put it on something that huge it tends to out balance itself. It's a bit like having someone else talking you through picking something up while you have no sense of touch.
There is one case where GR tech has been done in a way that I loved and still love to this day. The Evangelions of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
This anime showed GRs in a new way. instead of being entirely robotic the Evas are mostly organic, I love this because truely, only muscle tissue can react
that quickly, and also the pilots of the Evas have to link their own minds with the machine. In this way if they think about walking, the Eva walks. Same with pretty much any action. Of course the downside there is that the pilot feels the pain of the Eva, but thats forgivable and understandable, plus one would actually want that because it would keep the pilot from charging into battle like a cowboy.
So where am I going with all this? Well nowhere really.
Mostly I just wanted to rant and share that with you all, but feel free to leave your own views on giant robots, mechs, and other stuff in between.
Kobuk and Dragore, I'm looking at you.P.S. I also love the Gekkos of the latest Metal Gear game because of their organic legs. The Metal Gears of the past could never move quickly because they were all metal, hydraulic machines, but the Gekko legs are organic and as such it's only natural they'd be able to pull of the stunts they do....Does however make me wonder if theres a living brain in there or not... Hmmm.
