Mech Assault 2: Lone Wolf
Posted February 2, 2005
Following up one of the best Xbox Live experiences is a tricky thing to do. For one, why would you want to oust your previous gem, and secondly what could be added that would give people the incentive to upgrade to the newest version? Thankfully, Day 1 Studios has developed a great follow up to Mechassault with (naturally) Mechassault 2: Lone Wolf.
All who played the first game realized early on that the story really wasn’t the highlight of the game; rather it was the level of carnage that you caused that kept you coming back. However, being in that 40ft Mech was a little underwhelming, because the scale seemed off. Lone Wolf covers that area well with new features that show the immense scale of these hulking war machines.
Gameplay:
The first addition is the ability to get out of your Mech at any time in the game. However, as you might imagine, this leaves you vulnerable to anything including being stepped on by opposing and friendly Mechs. However you can just as easily enter any unmanned Mechs that are just sitting around collecting dust; in fact some missions revolve around this basic premise; steal Mechs and move on to the next level.
The other addition which adds to proving the scale of the machines is the new Battle Armor, which is essentially a wrapper around your human form made of metal which includes some nice jump jets. The coolest thing about the BA is the ability to Neuro-hack other Mechs in the game, and this means online as well. When you are near a Mech, a simple button press will bring up the Neuro-Hack interface which has you press a sequence of buttons to gain access to the hacked Mech. A pretty neat feature, but mighty annoying online.
Not stopping there with additions, tanks as well as flying supply ships called VTOLS (Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicles) are also usable in the game, both online and off. VTOLS are important especially when in the midst of a game on Live, as a well qualified pilot will supply you with armor and weapon upgrades in the middle of a full scale assault. Needless to say, the team with the better VTOL pilot really has an advantage.
As mentioned, the story in campaign mode is nothing really worth writing about, but you do see the return of The Word of Blake from Mechassault. This time however, your pilot is one of the few remaining MechWarriors of the Wolf Dragoons. Mech Warriors are the strong silent type, never muttering a word but doing all the dirty work, which ranges from beating the hell out of opposing Mechs, to sneaking around some buildings and planting explosive charges (of course, this is outside the Mech). The missions which take place partly outside the Mech actually are a distraction from the butchery that the rest of the game offers, which is a bad thing in this case. But thankfully the time spent outside a Mech or Battle Armor is limited, so you can count on some severe metallic ass kicking will be coming up soon after a foot mission.
The real joy in playing Lone Wolf is online. Sure we get the standard games that are expected to be here with death matches, and capture the flag. But this time, things are a little different. First off, you’ll notice the lobby is now an “interactive” arena with all Mech Warriors running around a small platform, and you cannot choose which Mech you get to use. Once the match starts, depending on the settings, groups of Mechs, tanks, Battle Armor and VTOLs are scattered near your team’s base, and it’s up to you to run over to your vehicle of choice and then enter it to start the battle. I guess this would even up the teams a bit, so you don’t have 6 heavy Mechs up against 6 VTOLs, but still it would be nice to know what type of Mech you can play in.
A new way of playing is also setup online. When you select Conquest mode, you first choose from 5 different houses of who you want to fight for. The fight is for the galaxy, and the war is ongoing. Once you select a faction, a status screen comes up with messages for your house about the status of the planets on which you have control. For example, one planet may be under attack and you need to go there to defend it, or another might be on the brink of changing power to your side and some extra attackers would only help the cause. However, the planetary control system is the only real change, as once you select a planet to fight on; it’s back to the death match action. One thing I did notice however is the players in Conquest mode seem a little more mature than the standard online players. So you might find less of the 12 year old rambling in this mode, which is always a good thing when playing online.
Graphics:
Obviously, some of the graphics needed to be changed for this iteration of the series, because when you take a step from the scale of forty foot Mechs to including human sized players, you need to take into account some more detail. However, the extra level of detail here is just enough to make the on foot levels passable, as the real bulk of the game is inside a giant Mech.
The Mechs all have a nice polish to them this go around, and the details are increased slightly over the predecessor, although not too noticeable unless doing a side by side comparison. But, it’s not really a bad thing as even the first game looked great when you tore a city apart.
More effects are noticeable here however, like when you are firing heavy machine guns, the empty casings are visible flying from your Mech, and other particle effect enhancements are here. Even destroying the Mechs has been tweaked slightly, a cool spatial distortion was added which warps the region around the newly downed machine.
Audio:
Audio however, was barely touched if at all from the first go around. The effects are the same in most cases, with additional sounds for tanks and Battle Armor. But again, this isn’t necessarily bad as it sounds great when turned up, especially when the sub-woofer starts kicking in during some of the boss battles.
During said boss battles, one can notice the inclusion of some of the licensed tracks from Papa Roach and Korn. I for one am starting to tire of licensed music in games, but for the type of game this was, both of those bands fit the action quite well.
Conclusion:
As a follow-up to a best selling game, does MA2 bring enough to the table? I personally think it actually brings more to this series than Halo 2 brought to its series, as far as new features, and enhancements (for one the cut scenes here are immensely cleaner than those in Halo 2). Online this game truly shines, I had endless fun when playing the original Mechassault online, and I actually found myself drawn into this one a little more, mainly due to Conquest mode. I really wanted my house to gain control of the galaxy. So in that regard, this sequel does more than the original.
But for those who don’t play online, I’d have a tough time recommending this, as the single player mode is actually quite short and not really engaging unless you think of endless battles against the CPU as engaging. But bring over some friends, some network cables and an extra Xbox or two, and I could see a lot of time being spent blasting each other with PPCs and Javelin missiles. This game gets a solid High Recommendation.
All who played the first game realized early on that the story really wasn’t the highlight of the game; rather it was the level of carnage that you caused that kept you coming back. However, being in that 40ft Mech was a little underwhelming, because the scale seemed off. Lone Wolf covers that area well with new features that show the immense scale of these hulking war machines.
Gameplay:
The first addition is the ability to get out of your Mech at any time in the game. However, as you might imagine, this leaves you vulnerable to anything including being stepped on by opposing and friendly Mechs. However you can just as easily enter any unmanned Mechs that are just sitting around collecting dust; in fact some missions revolve around this basic premise; steal Mechs and move on to the next level.
The other addition which adds to proving the scale of the machines is the new Battle Armor, which is essentially a wrapper around your human form made of metal which includes some nice jump jets. The coolest thing about the BA is the ability to Neuro-hack other Mechs in the game, and this means online as well. When you are near a Mech, a simple button press will bring up the Neuro-Hack interface which has you press a sequence of buttons to gain access to the hacked Mech. A pretty neat feature, but mighty annoying online.
Not stopping there with additions, tanks as well as flying supply ships called VTOLS (Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicles) are also usable in the game, both online and off. VTOLS are important especially when in the midst of a game on Live, as a well qualified pilot will supply you with armor and weapon upgrades in the middle of a full scale assault. Needless to say, the team with the better VTOL pilot really has an advantage.
As mentioned, the story in campaign mode is nothing really worth writing about, but you do see the return of The Word of Blake from Mechassault. This time however, your pilot is one of the few remaining MechWarriors of the Wolf Dragoons. Mech Warriors are the strong silent type, never muttering a word but doing all the dirty work, which ranges from beating the hell out of opposing Mechs, to sneaking around some buildings and planting explosive charges (of course, this is outside the Mech). The missions which take place partly outside the Mech actually are a distraction from the butchery that the rest of the game offers, which is a bad thing in this case. But thankfully the time spent outside a Mech or Battle Armor is limited, so you can count on some severe metallic ass kicking will be coming up soon after a foot mission.
The real joy in playing Lone Wolf is online. Sure we get the standard games that are expected to be here with death matches, and capture the flag. But this time, things are a little different. First off, you’ll notice the lobby is now an “interactive” arena with all Mech Warriors running around a small platform, and you cannot choose which Mech you get to use. Once the match starts, depending on the settings, groups of Mechs, tanks, Battle Armor and VTOLs are scattered near your team’s base, and it’s up to you to run over to your vehicle of choice and then enter it to start the battle. I guess this would even up the teams a bit, so you don’t have 6 heavy Mechs up against 6 VTOLs, but still it would be nice to know what type of Mech you can play in.
A new way of playing is also setup online. When you select Conquest mode, you first choose from 5 different houses of who you want to fight for. The fight is for the galaxy, and the war is ongoing. Once you select a faction, a status screen comes up with messages for your house about the status of the planets on which you have control. For example, one planet may be under attack and you need to go there to defend it, or another might be on the brink of changing power to your side and some extra attackers would only help the cause. However, the planetary control system is the only real change, as once you select a planet to fight on; it’s back to the death match action. One thing I did notice however is the players in Conquest mode seem a little more mature than the standard online players. So you might find less of the 12 year old rambling in this mode, which is always a good thing when playing online.
Graphics:
Obviously, some of the graphics needed to be changed for this iteration of the series, because when you take a step from the scale of forty foot Mechs to including human sized players, you need to take into account some more detail. However, the extra level of detail here is just enough to make the on foot levels passable, as the real bulk of the game is inside a giant Mech.
The Mechs all have a nice polish to them this go around, and the details are increased slightly over the predecessor, although not too noticeable unless doing a side by side comparison. But, it’s not really a bad thing as even the first game looked great when you tore a city apart.
More effects are noticeable here however, like when you are firing heavy machine guns, the empty casings are visible flying from your Mech, and other particle effect enhancements are here. Even destroying the Mechs has been tweaked slightly, a cool spatial distortion was added which warps the region around the newly downed machine.
Audio:
Audio however, was barely touched if at all from the first go around. The effects are the same in most cases, with additional sounds for tanks and Battle Armor. But again, this isn’t necessarily bad as it sounds great when turned up, especially when the sub-woofer starts kicking in during some of the boss battles.
During said boss battles, one can notice the inclusion of some of the licensed tracks from Papa Roach and Korn. I for one am starting to tire of licensed music in games, but for the type of game this was, both of those bands fit the action quite well.
Conclusion:
As a follow-up to a best selling game, does MA2 bring enough to the table? I personally think it actually brings more to this series than Halo 2 brought to its series, as far as new features, and enhancements (for one the cut scenes here are immensely cleaner than those in Halo 2). Online this game truly shines, I had endless fun when playing the original Mechassault online, and I actually found myself drawn into this one a little more, mainly due to Conquest mode. I really wanted my house to gain control of the galaxy. So in that regard, this sequel does more than the original.
But for those who don’t play online, I’d have a tough time recommending this, as the single player mode is actually quite short and not really engaging unless you think of endless battles against the CPU as engaging. But bring over some friends, some network cables and an extra Xbox or two, and I could see a lot of time being spent blasting each other with PPCs and Javelin missiles. This game gets a solid High Recommendation.