MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf

The game puts forth a decent (not great, sadly) presentation and can be quite a bit of fun

As further evidence to the vast amount of effort that’s gone into the game’s multiplayer mode, the wide number of maps and gameplay types included with the game (some maps which were only accessible if I loaded up the second “Limited Edition” disc that came with my game – an irritation, but don’t worry, all of the first-run copies of the game are supposed to come with this extra disc from what I hear) make for a huge variety of fun gameplay types. “Base War” is by far the most popular, where two teams are set up on each side of the map and are challenged with taking out each other’s generator, while defending their own. “Snatch It!” challenges two teams to charge into the middle of the map to secure all five of the Data Core modules stored there and bring them back home, but enemy players can raid your stock if necessary to increase the number of cores under their control. Finally, “Catch it!”, one of my personal favorites, is a kind of Domination-type mode that faces off the standard two teams on a large-scale map with the task of securing all of the control points – but the catch is, in order to capture a point, a given team’s pilot has to physically get out of his Mech, tank, or other vehicle and go on foot to hack the point’s control panel, leaving him incredibly vulnerable to attack for several seconds.

There are also a number of other modes of play I didn’t mention that everyone knows and loves, like Destruction / Team Destruction and Capture the Flag. The game has also endorsed the return of the basic VS-AI skirmish mode the original game had, which allowed me and (optionally) a single splitscreen buddy to play a Last Man Standing game against constantly increasing waves of AI-controlled enemy Mechs. This mode was pretty sweet at first, but it quickly left me wanting more elaborate action, as none of the more advanced multiplayer vehicles (like the VTOL) are available in this mode, the Battle Armor suits that initially seem tactically sound ultimately end up useless because hijacked enemy Mechs don’t drop any powerups to keep a player going (even if the disabled Mechs are later destroyed), and the “Last Man Standing” type of play was the only option available – there’s no kind of botmatch mode that’ll let a couple of players participate in a large-scale team-based game against a bunch of AI players or anything. I appreciate the gesture, but I wish more effort had been put into it.

Right, so let’s get into what makes Mech Assault 2’s multiplayer so dangerously addictive (and why it’s directly responsible for this article being a couple of days later than it should be). Unlike the original (and as I mentioned earlier), Mech Assault 2 does not allow players to select their ride of choice in the pre-mission phase. Instead, each and every player starts on foot (unless it’s a generic deathmatch gametype, and depending sometimes on the map), and it’s up to the team to work out which of the available vehicles are divvied up amongst the roster. …Or, more likely, you’ll end up with a team that fights over who gets to use the VTOL and wastes half the match teamkilling each other, but I guess it depends on the quality of your friends list. Regardless, each map only has a limited number of pilotable vehicles that appear at a given team’s base at once, which effectively eliminates the days of old where everybody sorties their favorite Mech and turns the battlefield into one big non-stop meat grinder.

I’ve already mentioned the VTOL a few times, but I haven’t quite gone into detail on what makes this aircraft so special. In most of the team-oriented gameplay modes, each team gets one VTOL aircraft that is capable of not only carrying tanks and Battle Armor-clad team mates into or out of the field, but can also land at pre-designated landing pads to select from up to four items to store in the VTOL’s cargo hold, the majority being specific power-ups for the weapon systems of other Mechs or vehicles, which can then be flown out into the battlezone and air-dropped to needy comrades. This adds an entirely new strategic slant to multiplayer, as the team with the better VTOL pilot will end up better upgraded, kept in prime condition (thanks to dropped health packs), and all-around more likely to win the match than the team with a VTOL pilot that has no idea what he’s doing. Additionally, the VTOL can also carry and deploy a limited number of automatic gun turrets (which don’t do much damage, but can be useful for securing an area or distracting an enemy), and even high-explosive bombs that can take huge chunk out of a Mech’s armor. Combine this with the drivable tank’s role as an assassination / sniper vehicle (due to its ability to cloak and the zoomable main cannon, which can actually knock a Mech over if it hits a Mech in the legs with enough punch), and it’s easy to see how Mech Assault 2’s multiplayer has been taken to a whole new level. With a decent team backing me up, I found the game’s online multiplayer to be incredibly addictive, and hope the Downloadable Content feature is used to make it even more fun in the future.

Sadly, even the game’s online mode isn’t without problems. As an interesting design quirk, what one would be expect to be a totally text-driven pre-mission lobby has been replaced with an actual 3D briefing center, where players can move their avatars (selected when they configure their profile) around the circular room and interact with other people via a limited set of emotion animations. It’s a novel feature at first, until I found there wasn’t really much to do but stand around and wait until the game started (at the least they could have made the many computer panels littering the chamber be interactive in some way). Things soon got worse once an exploit was discovered allowing players to actually walk right out of the briefing chamber and into open space, something which was initially amusing, but quickly becomes outright irritating once I was told that this wacky little bug can (and actually has, in my experience) cause the game to become unstable or just incredibly broken once the match begins, usually forcing players to reset their Xboxes outright. I haven’t heard any news on a forthcoming fix yet, but I sincerely hope once is in the works. On top of all that, the game’s multiplayer interface is somewhat unwieldy, with a bit too much navigation required to access the friends list (I think I’ve been spoiled by Halo 2) and long, strange pauses when closing out of a final menu to return to the multiplayer screen. These are mostly minor irritations (aside from that freakish space-walk exploit), but they put sizable dents in what should be a much smoother and much more enjoyable experience. At least I haven’t run into any major latency problems, and the game’s communication system seems to behave adequately, though I wish there were dedicated functions for talking specifically to my team or nearby enemy players.

Mech Assault 2 is, much like the original, a smorgasbord of graphical goodness, offering some of the best special effects I’ve seen in the industry. The Mech explosions look absolutely amazing, the PPC bolts appear as devastating as they are physically effective, and the special effect that covers a vehicle when the cloaking device is activated made my jaw drop the first time I saw it. Even the water looks incredibly awesome – definitely a match for Half-Life 2 and Halo 2. The animations aren’t particularly a slouch either, as being able to see pilots physically crawl into their vehicle of choice and slam the hatch shut is much more refreshing than the simple “teleport into vehicle” effect most other games would have opted for, and the Mechs themselves look pretty slick and smooth in motion – well, aside from the fact that they look downright ridiculous in combat because the legs are jumping around so much in random directions as the pilots try to maneuver around each other. But overall, the game has definitely seen a noticeable facelift in the graphics department over the original, and the consistently smooth framerates make for a good experience. My only disappointment lies in the lack of any noticeable location-damage-effects, which would’ve added a very nice touch to all the action.

On a slightly less enthusiastic note, I didn’t really find myself approving of the overall sound quality in Mech Assault 2. Sure, all the basic effects one would expect from a game involving giant robots are there (aside from the obligatory high-pitched shrill of a Mech’s fusion reactor starting up when you get into it for the first time, which is suspiciously absent), but there are some secondary things that didn’t quite jive with me. For starters, my opinion of the music ranged from “adequate ambience” to “I’m going to turn off the music now so I can run WinAMP in the background and listen to the Mechwarrior 2 soundtrack instead”. I guess for a game that has a strong promotional focus on “we let you run around in a giant robot and blow things up! And tanks! And Battle Armor! EXPLOSIONS” some heavy rock music is to be expected, but I feel the game could have been more immersive and intense if a slightly more subdued music track was introduced more often. Then again, since “immersive” doesn’t seem to be part of the game’s vocabulary, I’m probably in the minority with my thoughts here. The voice acting is also pretty much what one would expect for a game purely revolving on action over plot – that is, the acting and dialogue are both passable, but little more, and some of the lines of dialogue seemed a bit out of place. Finally, some of the sound effects were just outright irritating, with outstanding offenders being the new sounds used to warn the player that his heat or damage levels are reaching critical. The damage warning is particularly annoying, with a constant bloop noise that increases gradually in tempo the closer the player gets to death. I found it to be immensely distracting during the action and kept looking for a way to turn it off, to no avail. What happened to the good old days of a cool computer voice flatly stating when your reactor is about to overheat or describing the damage you’re taking?

At the end of the day, I’m left somewhat disappointed with Mech Assault 2 – and perhaps I say this both as a somewhat jaded Battletech fan and as a gamer who was hoping for a fun, intense, action-packed experience and got something that that reached for, but never quite accomplished what I was hoping. The singleplayer experience is still woefully sub-par (honestly, what the hell was up with that final battle?), the interface feels a lot slower and clunkier than it needs to be, the multiplayer is laden with a number of bugs, and the game overall just doesn’t feel very polished. On the other hand, the graphics are nothing short of amazing, the game is very easy to pick up and play (even the daunting role of a multiplayer VTOL pilot takes less than three minutes to fully grasp), the teamplay action over Xbox Live is guaranteed to make you lose several valuable hours of sleep if you assemble a decent team and play right into the night (the integrated Xbox Live 3.0 features don’t hurt either), and it has the undeniable advantage of simply being a title that lets you hop in a giant robot and leave a huge, burning trail of destruction in your wake. Those of you out there who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about “the good old Mechwarrior days” and want to get in on some fresh multiplayer action that’s at least as fun as Halo 2 shouldn’t hesitate to pick up Mech Assault 2: Lone Wolf, as there’s a very good chance you’ll enjoy the hell out of it. As for the rest of the community that feels a little neglected and incredibly cautious, all I can say is that you should try to put aside your prejudice over how the license is currently being used and contemplate giving this game a shot – at worst, you’ll get fed up with the laughable singleplayer campaign and decide the occasional aggravation of trying to get a decent match going over Xbox Live isn’t worth it, but at best you’ll find a charming game that tries a crazy new twist on the Battletech universe and offers some fresh multiplayer action is far less generic-feeling as the original Mech Assault’s was. My personal, closing comment on Mech Assault 2: Lone Wolf is that the game puts forth a decent (not great, sadly) presentation and can be quite a bit of fun, but I’m left feeling sad that this is the direction common Mech games are starting to take in stride, and pray that us simulator fans aren’t left totally forgotten. But hey, at least it isn’t Gungriffon!