Wartech?

[Gabriel]

Did any pick up Wartech? I'm looking for some AtariAge opinions on this one.

[FastRobPlus]

Did any pick up Wartech? I'm looking for some AtariAge opinions on this one.

 

Have not had time to get into it. Only got it yesterday. It's a very tactical fighter and one of the guys here was really into it.

[ManShowBoy]

$60 for this game is waaaaaaayyyy too expensive to pay. I wanted it but, when I saw the price I passed. Wartech should be no more than $40.

[Gabriel]

WalMart dropped the price (online) to $30, so I went ahead and ordered it. So, I guess I'll see how it is in a week or two.

[moycon]

Please do a review of that game Gabriel. $30 is a great price but I'd like to see some feedback.

 

Actually I was suprised at the GREAT games Wal-Mart has for under $20.

If a person owns a 360 and doesn't yet have Lego Star Wars or Viva Pinata they are both available new for under $20!!

Those are both must plays in my opinion.

[Fighter17]

Game is known as Senko no Ronde in Japan.

 

Developed by G. Rev (Border Down, Under Defeat, both for arcade (this and the other two games were on the Naomi board) and Dreamcast). Shooting/Fighting game that was popular in Japan.

 

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/naomi/senkonoronde/

 

US coverart:

 

 

JP coverart:

 

 

Yeah.....

Edited August 5, 2007 by Fighter17

[FastRobPlus]

Kind of remonds me of the Atari versus Sears box threads elsewhere on the site.

[Lastblade]

Bought it last week, played 20 matches online and it was very smooth.

 

I really like this game, it is kinda like a 2D Virtual On.

[Gabriel]

Please do a review of that game Gabriel. $30 is a great price but I'd like to see some feedback.

 

I'll try to get up the enthusiasm to play some more and do a review.

 

But, if I don't get around to it, I'll just say that I would have felt extremely ripped off at $60, and even at $30 I feel I paid too much. If there had been a demo of this game available, I doubt I would have purchased it.

[Cabal]

I bought it for $30 a few weeks ago, and I love it. Its not worth the original $60 price tag, but at $30 its a great deal. The game is best described as a shump crossed with Virtual On, so its not for everyone.

[Gabriel]

Once upon a time, there was a baby who cried too much. So, the people of Earth all packed up and blasted off into space, leaving the baby to die.

 

It's this practical mindset which sets the stage for Wartech. I suspect that bit of the opening story is metaphorical, but it's not clear what the hell it's a metaphor for. There are more story bits, but who really cares? It's not an RPG after all.

 

Wartech is a one on one fighter in a shooter guise which presents the player with 8 mechs/characters. As a Gundam/Robotech/Macross fan, I personally think all the mechs look pretty silly. They're what I call "Video Game Mechs", because you'd never see an actual anime with these designs. (At least I hope not.) Each mech has two "cartridges" which supposedly change the characteristics of your mech. In addition, each mech is accompanied by a few still frame pictures of the pilots who are all anime teenagers, and otherwise have no bearing on the game beyond the silly storyline. In versus mode you can also change the color of your mech, which also changes the portrait your character uses.

 

I prefer the 16 year old pink haired chick, because I'm a dirty old pervert. She loses her mind for some reason and becomes some kind of murderous bitch. Two thumbs up on that point at least!

 

There are the typical modes you'd expect. There's a story mode which is the meat and potatoes of the game. There's a score mode, where you have to beat the game on 3 lives and get a high score. There's training, so you can practice. Rounding everything off, there are also Versus and XBox Live Modes, as well as the original arcade mode buried in the Extras menu. For this rant, I played Story and Versus a bit, and also tried out Score Attack mode. I logged roughly 4 hours with the game and got a few achievements, which may or may not be enough, but I personally feel it was more than plenty. I didn't actually exhaust the game, but I felt exhausted of it when I was done.

 

The vast majority of the game consists of you piloting your little mech in battle against someone elses (a player or the CPU) little mech. Battles take place in 2D space rendered in 3D. Most of the time you will be watching two small, indistinct shapes surrounded by green and red circles revolving around each other. There will also be bullets, lots and lots of bullets, but you'd be surprised by how often they don't hit anything. Occasionally the mechs will get close to each other and the camera will zoom in for a brief, fleeting instant before one mech or the other is knocked back and the camera zooms out again.

 

The first problem is that it's easy to lose track of where your mech is, especially with dark mechs on dark backgrounds. When playing against a friend, the most common comment was "Where the fuck am I?" Quite frequently, we'd have to stop for a moment before we realized we had gotten confused on the last fly-by and were now looking at the wrong mech.

 

For a game primarily about shooting, it's a bit of a shock to discover there is no aiming whatsoever. The best you can do is learn your firing patterns, try to move into a good position, press the fire button, and hope for the best. Much of the time you'll simply watch your shots miss, especially against a computer player. It really boils down to what shot spreads your mech has at it's disposal. Some are much better than others.

 

At first, there doesn't seem to be much technique involved in the game. Many of the mechs play very similarly. It wasn't until I happened upon a melee specialist mech which I really noticed any incentive for different play styles. The melee mech had one move which locked an opponent in place, and other moves which could be punishing once that happened. In short, they were mecha-Sub-Zero. The problem was that it took quite a bit of play before such a difference became apparrent. Many of the other characters felt like this game's versions of original Street Fighter II's Ken and Ryu.

 

Instead of super moves like traditional fighting games, you can engage a BOSS mode. This transforms you into a giant Boss from a shooter and allows you to fill the screen with bullets. Once again, it's amazing how much those bullets miss. BOSS mode only lasts a short time, so you need to make the most of it by laying into your opponent while it lasts. It's a good way to finish off an elusive opponent near death, or to buy yourself some extra time. Some bosses are much, much nastier than others.

 

Most of the game is versus fighting, but in story mode you'll have one level near the end which is something akin to a scrolling shooter boss battle. This is not like BOSS mode above. You're up against three sections of fixed emplacement bristling with guns which have coverage of damn near the entire screen. Some of your maneuvers are disabled, some characters lose a big chunk of their utility, and the level bears no similarity to the rest of the game.

 

Getting through this shooter level requires learning the cheap tricks to get by. The whole bit seems like busywork, and it is. I'd be doing fine on the rest of the game, only to reach this point and have to continue again and again. This would continue until I learned the trick I needed to use with each character. Upon learning this, the level became trivial.

 

That's about it. There isn't much here. The graphics are effective, and there are some pretty backgrounds, but it all looks sorta last gen. Sound is OK, but nothing memorable and definitely nothing I'll run out and buy the soundtrack for.

 

Is it exciting? Random is the word I'd use. Often you'll look up to see yourself nearly dead when nothing has touched you the entire fight. Or maybe you'll just get sick of your shots eternally missing the target for no apparrent reason. It isn't like Soul Calibur where a loss distinctly feels like your opponent has outfought you. A loss in this game feels like the controls completely failed you.

 

It's different. There's not much else like it in this day and age. However, that's like saying there aren't a lot of grade-D 16-bit fighters in this day and age. It's true, but not a ringing endorsement. I haven't made many jokes about the game because it's so bland. You'd think a mecha game combining the shooter genre with the fighting game genre and packed with underage anime girls would be anything but bland, but it is. It makes me want to cry.

 

My opinion right now, until I decide to revise it, is that Wartech is at the upper end of bad. It doesn't feel like a full blown game. It feels like it was halfway completed and someone said, "good enough. Ship it!" It definitely isn't worth the original $60 asking price, and I even feel it wasn't worth the $30 mark down price.

 

Oh well, win some, lose some.