Reviews / previews
Remember Face/Off,
where we had John
Travolta acting as
Nicholas Cage acting as
John Travolta? Not
many people could've
pulled it off, and the
overall effect was
marvelous and even
humorous, if a little
creepy at times. The
same could be said of
Monolith's Shogo:
Mobile Armor Division, a
first-person paean to the
wonky worlds of
Japanese anime; it's a
slightly Americanized
spin on a Japanese
genre.
Monolith nailed it-they
even got the
quintessential Bad
Japanese Pop Band to
do the shrill, cheesy
music for the opening
movie. The idea was to
let every Mech-head,
otaku, and
science-fantasy fan in
the creative ranks of
Monolith go nuts. They
filled a class-A shooter
with Macross/Evengelion transformations, neon cityscapes from Blade
Runner, and the kinds of story elements that only the Japanese have hitherto
had the nerve to employ-the fact, for example, that you've lost your girlfriend in
the war, and now you're dating her sister, and your commanding officer is their
father, and that this all somehow becomes a plot point. As the protagonist
notes in the game's prelude, "It's kind of complicated."
The lengthy plot of Shogo's single-player game alternates between two broad
styles of mission: those where you're on foot, and those in which you
command several-stories-tall mecha-er, excuse me, "MCAs." The play styles
have functional similarities. Both, for example, have a nifty zoom-in sniper
feature that trades rate of fire for accuracy.
Within these two general mission types is everything from open-wasteland,
powered-armor brawls to inner-city,
try-not-to-step-on-the-explosive-parked-cars MCA clashes to desperate,
squad-level base infiltrations. One mission set in a martial-law slum has you
rooting through a rotting warehouse with a squeak-toy (I'm not kidding),
looking for (I'm still not kidding) some old lady's cat.
This game's packed with those elusive,
golden Nice Touches that make good
games great: In open-terrain combat
zones, clouds overhead cast shadows
that creep and warp across the ground,
and a well-timed look into the sky will
reveal troop-transport ships descending
into view through the haze; key points in
various missions trigger bits of
personality from your character (a hotel
manager's macho "Hey, don't make me
call security!" is immediately countered with your annoyed "Hey, don't make
me shoot you!"); and the urban environments, while a tad angular, have an
awe-inspiring sense of size and are dotted with all manner of signs, in-gags,
and visual references.
Not to imply that Shogo's realistic,
because it's not. Like the best anime,
it's joyfully ludicrous. Your lumbering,
four-story, heavy MCA can, on the run,
transform into a nimble hovercraft before
you can say "Beta Capsule." There's a
formal anime rule that Bigger is Better,
and laws pertaining to mass and inertia
have been cheerily chucked out the
window. The same sort of enemy MCA
that just did a sprightly little soft-shoe
between two buildings will later tote a gun the length of six Mac trucks end to
end, with no apparent weight-distribution difficulties.
Of course, your MCA has an appropriately huge sword (in case that TOW
rocket-launcher you've been schlepping doesn't do the trick). And for some
bizarre reason, scoring a "critical hit" on enemies instantly increases your
capacity to take damage. Dramatic as hell, but ludicrous. Shogo should bring
a smile to any anime fan's face, but even the Japanimationally challenged will
find a solid, slick shooter with tons of replayability.-- Chris Hudak / GamePro
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