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IGN Review of Front Mission Evolved
I came into Front Mission Evolved knowing nothing about it. I hadn't previewed it, I wasn't up on the franchise to this point, and I honestly wasn't even sure what type of game I was getting into. Now that I'm done with the title, I know plenty, but if you want me to boil it down for you right off the bat: Front Mission Evolved is just an uninspired game that'll only appeal to the hardcore mech-heads out there.
It's the year 2171 and the world's broken up into warring factions that each have "orbital elevators" that allow military bases to exist in space. While the streets and cities look like they could be pulled from our own time, the technological advancements of more than 150 years seem to have gone into wanzers -- mech's humans climb into and pilot around like badass Transformers that don't transform. You'll step into the shoes of Dylan Ramsey and try to uncover the truth behind the world's latest threat in this third-person adventure.
This story shakes out in a few different ways. The majority of gameplay is wanzer-based combat. You'll be unleashed on a mission, blast a bunch of bad guys with your rockets, and eventually face off against a boss in a powered-up suit. This stuff can be fun, but most of the time it was frustrating filler. I just ran around blasting bad guys and hiding behind buildings to survive. Before every mission, you get to customize your wanzer. Everything has a weight to it, so you need to balance your loadout and make sure you're well-armed and still functional.
I dig this experimentation and customization, but lots of missions seem to shoehorn you into annoying loadouts. One demanded that I use these legs that could glide over water, but doing so meant I could only carry one weapon into a tough mission. Another made me use spider-legs for some unknown reason, and this meant that I was very slow and always open for attack. There are boosters so that I could shoot around levels, but the wanzer was so clunky I found myself getting caught on corners of the environment and feeling less than awesome.
On the other hand, there are levels where you're running around sans-mech, and these play out like a sub par third-person shooter. You have two weapons, there's no cover system other than crouching behind stuff, and your health regenerates. You run around, collect money you can use to upgrade the wanzer, and kill bad guys that don't put up much of a fight.
All of this is pretty straight forward. The story is told in five acts that shouldn't take you too long to play through, although I did get stuck at some obnoxious boss fights here and there. The voice acting's stiff as well as repetitive. The characters don't look that great, but the wanzers themselves stand out as they fight in the drab environments.
Now, while I complained about the game forcing me into specific movement styles for the single-player campaign, it's almost forgivable if you look at Front Mission Evolved as a multiplayer game. That is, there's a multiplayer portion here that almost seems to be the game's focus so the single-player stuff is really just teaching you the differences when it comes to weapons, mech parts, and so on.
In multiplayer, you'll face off in four modes: deathmatch, team deathmatch, domination, and supremacy. As you play, you'll be earning experience points as you go and progressing toward Level 70, which is a rather insane milestone. As far as the combat itself, multiplayer can be fun. Boosting around the map, hovering over enemies, and trying to get a missile lock makes for a good time -- this is more interesting than the campaign that has my enemies just sitting around waiting to die. My problem is that the ranked matches just drag on and on. Domination wants you to capture the opposing team's turrets, but you have to play to 1,000 points and the time limit is rather long.
In short, there's just no polish to Front Mission Evolved. It doesn't feel slick.
©2010-10-01, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
It's the year 2171 and the world's broken up into warring factions that each have "orbital elevators" that allow military bases to exist in space. While the streets and cities look like they could be pulled from our own time, the technological advancements of more than 150 years seem to have gone into wanzers -- mech's humans climb into and pilot around like badass Transformers that don't transform. You'll step into the shoes of Dylan Ramsey and try to uncover the truth behind the world's latest threat in this third-person adventure.
This story shakes out in a few different ways. The majority of gameplay is wanzer-based combat. You'll be unleashed on a mission, blast a bunch of bad guys with your rockets, and eventually face off against a boss in a powered-up suit. This stuff can be fun, but most of the time it was frustrating filler. I just ran around blasting bad guys and hiding behind buildings to survive. Before every mission, you get to customize your wanzer. Everything has a weight to it, so you need to balance your loadout and make sure you're well-armed and still functional.
I dig this experimentation and customization, but lots of missions seem to shoehorn you into annoying loadouts. One demanded that I use these legs that could glide over water, but doing so meant I could only carry one weapon into a tough mission. Another made me use spider-legs for some unknown reason, and this meant that I was very slow and always open for attack. There are boosters so that I could shoot around levels, but the wanzer was so clunky I found myself getting caught on corners of the environment and feeling less than awesome.
On the other hand, there are levels where you're running around sans-mech, and these play out like a sub par third-person shooter. You have two weapons, there's no cover system other than crouching behind stuff, and your health regenerates. You run around, collect money you can use to upgrade the wanzer, and kill bad guys that don't put up much of a fight.
All of this is pretty straight forward. The story is told in five acts that shouldn't take you too long to play through, although I did get stuck at some obnoxious boss fights here and there. The voice acting's stiff as well as repetitive. The characters don't look that great, but the wanzers themselves stand out as they fight in the drab environments.
Now, while I complained about the game forcing me into specific movement styles for the single-player campaign, it's almost forgivable if you look at Front Mission Evolved as a multiplayer game. That is, there's a multiplayer portion here that almost seems to be the game's focus so the single-player stuff is really just teaching you the differences when it comes to weapons, mech parts, and so on.
In multiplayer, you'll face off in four modes: deathmatch, team deathmatch, domination, and supremacy. As you play, you'll be earning experience points as you go and progressing toward Level 70, which is a rather insane milestone. As far as the combat itself, multiplayer can be fun. Boosting around the map, hovering over enemies, and trying to get a missile lock makes for a good time -- this is more interesting than the campaign that has my enemies just sitting around waiting to die. My problem is that the ranked matches just drag on and on. Domination wants you to capture the opposing team's turrets, but you have to play to 1,000 points and the time limit is rather long.
In short, there's just no polish to Front Mission Evolved. It doesn't feel slick.
©2010-10-01, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved