As Fat's Giant Robot Week lingers on, slowly transforming into Fat's Giant Robot Month, I stumble over Chou Sou Juu Mecha MG on insert credit. It's a giant-robot-war game for the DS, apparently. Transforming giant robots! Fighting around the Eiffel Tower, no less. So, title that rolls off the tongue, possibility of trashing the Eiffel Tower, giant robots with multiple configurations. This one should be hard to fuck up.
The gameplay movie looks only okay, except for the super-rad control interface: on the touchscreen there's levers to move, switches to throw, and the like. If your character's got a giant bow, there's a bow-analogue on the touchscreen, where you've got to pull the string. If your character's got a spinning-blade attack, I suspect, there's a blade you'll have to spin on the touchscreen. Assuming these controls are analog, rather than digital, then this will be worth a strong look.
This title is apparently another step down a long-established manga/anime road: these games will serve to train the next generation of mech pilots, and there will be vast, lengthy tournaments to see who those pilots are likely to be.
As long as those tournaments aren't of Virtual On, at which DDT used to school me mercilessly, I expect I'll be fine.
-Fat
5 comments:
Brother, the arcade hasn't really been the same since they took VirtualOn out...
To tie VirtualOn more into your giant robo / dream cast haze, although I'm sure you know VO was a Sega product, did you ever notice the 'bots all had Dreamcasts on thier backs that opened when dey fired de jets?
There was a port of a Virtal On sequel for the Dreamcast, but the twin-stick controller available, indeed necessary, for it has vanished into the pricey eBay hazes, it would seem. Sad. Then again, no matter how much I might like to own a Virtal On sequel (uh, like, a lot), there's no chance I'd ever buy TWO such controllers, and the game's not much fun single-player. So this is another dream doomed to deferrment.
-Fat
Hmm. I guess my point is how much arcades fucking suck these days. VirtualOn, with the sit-down "control pods" and unique twin-stick controllers made it one of those games the experience of which is difficult to replicate at home. Now its gone and all that remains is stand-up shooters like the House of the Dead Franchise and Racers. They even took out that Neo-Geo machine that had like 40 awesome scrollers on it. Boooooooring!
Only part of Virutal On the home can't provide is the dual screens. This is a huge lack, I grant, but the controllers were available, and I'll put my stereo against their cabinets' speakers anytime.
Yr larger point is true, though. There used to be a market for big attraction pieces that weren't driving games: VO was one, the sadly neglected T-Mekk was one, even those awful skating/snowboarding games. Now it's just racers and whatever's got a Star Wars decal slapped on it. Avalon's still all right by me, since my arcade tastes run heavily toward skeeball and the occasional nostalgia round of Street Fighter, but Tilt's a wreck. Seriously, I couldn't drop a five-spot in there if I tried. Ground Kontrol's okay, but last week, I'm standing there busting ass at Roadblasters and some dude comes up and starts talking to me in the middle of my game.
In what species is this acceptable behavior? And could that species please go back to the planet it's from?
-Fat
Oh, and though I've never been stoked on the franchise, I gotta admit that the new Metal Slug (five, I think) was super-fun, last time I hit Avalon.
-Fat
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