Armored Core

It's been a long time coming, but the American PSX has finally recieved a Mecha game. Armored Core is a mixed bag of giant robot battles & lots of customization. Right from the start you'll have to design your own mech. Including everything from the weapon placement to color scheme. Each part has it's strengths & weakenesses and only the right combination will help you out in a certain missions. Otherwise you can pretty much build your own mech as long as it's within the weight and energy limits. The rest of the game sends you on various missions where you usually have to find something or destroy all the enemies. The better you preform on a mission the more money you earn to buy parts. You can even find some hidden pieces that can be used on your mech. The game does have some flaws. Such as the disappointing 2 player mode. It's basically a one on one bout (what no cooperation?) that uses tiny windows, an incredibly slow frame-rate, & is just plain awful. The game while fun is still pretty short & again I must mention how the missions start to blur together. I think a better story & perhaps some more variety in the missions could have really helped this title along. But as it stands, Armored Core is still a decent little mech game that will please most US fans of the genre.

Overall 8.0