If today's trailer for sci-fi tactical shooter (with mecha bits) Left Alive is any indication, Front Mission's awkward relationship with the PC might not be changing. The Tokyo Game Show trailer gives us a frustratingly vague (if pretty) glimpse at the war-torn future nation of Novo Slava and the characters players will be sneaking around it as. What it doesn't feature in great quantity is mech battles, despite Left Alive being set in Square Enix's long-running Front Mission universe. Below: Not the robots you're looking for.
]]>Front Mission Evolved is out today. Here's Wot I Think.
Front Mission has changed. What was a turn-based console RPG featuring walking tanks and a complex political backstory is now a multi-platform third-person shooter featuring walking tanks and complex political backstory. Front Mission Evolved is an evolution, of sorts, and it starts out well. ROLLERSKATING ROBOTS ARE ATTACKING THE SPACE ELEVATOR! A stylish robo-movie opens things up for us and then...
]]>That's "Walking Panzer", I believe. Wanzer. Yeah. Anyway, I've been playing a bit of our preview version of this and ROLLERSKATING ROBOTS ARE ATTACKING THE MANHATTAN SPACE ELEVATOR! Things have got a bit less interesting after the initial insane FMVs, but I will play through some more and let you know what I think. This is definitely not the Front Mission Evolved you will be familiar with from years past, anyway, as you can see from the new trailers detailing different shooty-biff Wanzer types, which I have posted below.
]]>It might be the lack of sleep, or the caffeine I've used to prop my brain open, but the glimpse of robo-customisation in the new Front Mission Evolved trailer (below, via Big Download) made me a bit giddy. Also: roller-skating robots in the classic Japanese urban robo-war style, big guns making noise, and wanzers (that's the mechs) doing circle strafing in the classic This Game Is A Shooter style. Front Mission Evolved my be ejecting much of the heritage of its parent series, but there's a vague chance that it might just be an entertaining robot-biff game, and we are so, so lacking in that department these days. Also in wanzer news (for which there is a dev blog): Front Mission Evolved has been confirmed for a September 14th release date.
]]>Ooh, this is like Where's Wally with Actual Game Footage. I think there might actually be a fraction of a second of game footage in this latest Front Mission Evolved trailer, somewhere between all the full-motion video stuff. See if you can spot it! In case you've no idea what is going on here, well, this is the latest part of Square Enix's tactical RPG series, Front Mission, which has only gone and turned into a mech-based third-person action game. Quite a peculiar evolution, I must say. Still, it might be fun for a few minutes, and it's out some time this spring. Mmm.
]]>Robots! Squenix seem to be making some serious inroads to newish (or at least refreshed) gaming territory, with their most recently announced title being a mech-based third person shooter called Front Mission Evolved, of this lineage. The robots in question are called "Wanzers", which made me snigger a bit, but I'm sure they'll satisfy a few robo-porn-hungry gamers out there. Clearly it's going to be action-tastic, rather than a Battletech type robo-sim, but that could be okay. Not much other info at present, other than it's being developed by Double Helix Games, a California-based spin off from Shiny Entertainment. Perhaps we'll find out a bit more at E3. Early CGI robo-trailer beneath the click.
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