Ignition! VT Stand Up!!

I did it! I did it!

Fantasmic.

A few weeks ago I bought Steel Battalion (Along with the multiplayer sequel, Line of Contact), and I don't even have an XBox! As an enthusiast of machines of the giant and robotic variety, I can't believe I let this one be for as long as I did.

Steel Battalion is really rather good, for someone who's always been waiting for a Mech game as realistic as possible considering mechs aren't, well, real, this delivers in spades, then lots more.

I'm amazed that there are people who think that some buttons on the controller are useless - on the contrary, everything has to be used at the right time or you'll be dead quite quickly. And of course, this is Steel Battalion, the game where if you die, your save is deleted and you must begin the huge campaign all over again - no matter how experienced and vetted your character is. The only way to survive is to push that lovely little button inside the glass case.

The control system is brilliant, it gives the game so much, and makes playing it a joy and a challenge. The learning curve is steep - piloting a VT (Vertical Tank) is more complicated than driving a car, because with a car you've got gears, gas, brake, clutch and the wheel. In a VT, you have all of those, then replace the wheel with a camera which can point in one direction, your weapons which can point in another, and your legs, which can run off in a third direction. Not to mention the bank of controls to defend you from hails of rockets, bombs, shrapnel, and if you're unlucky, laserfire, which will tear you up rather quickly. Truthfully, there's no clutch in a VT. Instead you get a strafing 'Slidestep' pedal. Oh, and yes, you can wash the windscreen.

Beginning each mission, you're greeted with the view from the seat of an open cockpit. You manually close the cockpit hatch, complete with a very high quality and fluid animation (Unique to each technological generation of VTs). Afterwards you must boot up the OS and the engine, failiure to do so will stall it, which is never a good start. Especially since about 20/23 of the missions involve enemies practically blasting you from the word go.

Oh and because the first mission takes place as your base is being attacked, there's no tutorial. In the words of the game - "Read the manual!"

Shoe Rests!

It's getting quite old now, but playing it three years after it's release it's as good as if it were new. The graphics are grainy and sometimes difficult to make out, but Steel Battalion's excuse is that you're seeing the world through a camera mounted in your unit's head. One thing this doesn't explain is the extremely short draw distance - something which is cured in the sequel, Line of Contact (Which I've yet to play, as my halls won't allow XBox Live!).

It was originally released for $200, about £105 or so. I bought it for less than that off of eBay, and really feel that it's the most fulfilling game I've bought to date. It's worth every penny to have such a blasting good time.

Well it's big and robot shaped, but it could be anything.