Genre: First-person/Mech-sim
Developer: Lost Toys
Publisher: Atari/Infogrames
# of Players: 2 players
Memory: N/A
ERSB: Teens
Released On: November 18th, 2002
Also On: Playstation 2,
Features: 2-player co-op, Deathmatch, Skirmishes, Branching paths in story mode
Introduction:
Last year was a huge year for ‘mech’ games, with MechAssault, Steel Battalion, and GunMetal, there were tons. Just like any other time that there’s a resurgence of games in a certain genre, a lot of games get overlooked, but sometimes a good-to-great game gets overlooked and lost in the shuffle. Consider Battle Engine Aquila that gem that fell through the cracks of the thing called hype.
Presentation:
Personally, I got the vibe of an old ‘B-movie’, where the giant creature rises from the deep and goes on a rampage, mad at the world because someone didn’t give him his Prozac. Except in this game, you work for the good guys. The Battle Engine Aquila is the mech you’ll control throughout the entire game, and it’s somewhat a hybrid of a jet, a rocket, and an AT-AT from Star Wars.
The BEA (Battle Engine Aquila) can wreak havoc in two ways; you can a) go into battle in ‘Walker mode’, where you’re raising hell on 4 legs, on land, of course, or b) bring death from above in ‘Jet mode’, where, you guessed it, you’re a flying mech. The transition is very seamless, done with just the press of the X button. The control is the same in both modes, as is the view-point, that of the first-person.
The first-person view is a surprisingly welcome twist on the genre. It gives you a more intimate side of the gameplay, making the action more ‘in-your-face’. And while the BEA is the secret weapon, there are massive battles going on, and you hardly get the sense that this is merely you versus an army of morons.
The BEA is only a piece of the puzzle when it comes to victory, where as in other mech games, it’s more like one mech wiping out everyone and saving the world. From having extensive playing time, I would venture to guess that the developer’s biggest goal was immersing the player in the game as a part of an army, a sense of cooperation, opposed to controlling one gigantic weapon of mass-destruction, and not only did they reach that goal, they far surpassed it. Everything from the menus, the cut-scenes, everything, was done very nicely, and like I said, there was an over-whelming vibe of a B-movie. But since when is that necessarily a bad thing? Aside from the excessively lame characters, though.
Gameplay:
Controlling the BEA is very easy, but the longer you play, the deeper it gets and the more involved you become. The BEA moves on its own, but you simply steer it with your left stick, and control your aim and view with the right one, like your basic first-person game. I mentioned the two modes the Aquila has, and each mode has its according weaponry. The Jet may have grenades and spread bombs, but when you morph back into the Walker, you might have a laser-beam and a pulse cannon. You’ll have to consider these things before a mission, depending on your objectives. Also, as you progress through the game, you “earn” various prototypes of the BEA, all of them having a varied weapons set. For instance, there’s a mission where you have to destroy several radar-dishes, but they are all spread out over the island, and you have a time-limit. Not just a standard time-limit, but a time-limit which just happens to keep you from being able to travel to all the dishes in time. So here’s where the different variations of the BEA come in. You just pick the “Sniper” BEA prototype, which has a rail-gun that has a super scope on it, so now you, can destroy your targets from afar, without having to worry about traveling. Remember, the amazingly intuitive controls make it a blast to control the BEA. As far as variation in missions, when you pass a mission, you unlock that mission in what’s called “Evo mode”, which is basically where you play the exact same mission, but the enemy will kick you ass into next Thursday; not a pretty (or easy) sight. It’s basically a fancy way to change the difficulty from “normal” to “get your ass kicked”.
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Visuals:
The visuals in BEA are impressive, but nothing to drool over. Imagine being able to control a unit in the first-person in the ‘Starcraft’ universe and you’ll get the jist of BEA. Most of the vehicles and ship look fairly great, and I caught a few great-to-amazing weapons special effects, such as bright, glaring laser beams.
Like you’d expect, some of the game takes place over or near water, and while good, the water isn’t near ‘Blood Wake’-quality. Nearly all of the battle-ships and buildings are so mundane and generic you don’t mention them, but things like drop-ships and “boss” ships look neat-o. The overall visual sense is great. I mean, it looks like there really is a major war going on. You get to see TONS of enemies on-screen, about 100 little soldiers, bases, towers, tanks, ships, cannons, everything. And there is a wide variety in the way of vehicles. Think something like Star Wars, as far as variety, such as AT-AT’s to X-Wings, ground and air forces.
One of the little subtleties that impressed me was, as I said, that a good part of the game takes place over water, and for some reason or another, there must have been massive flooding because you can see remnants of fallen cities and civilizations, sky-scrapers and whatnot. I was confused, though, because that gives you the vibe that it’s post-Apocalyptic, but judging by the rest of the game, it wasn’t meant to be taken that way. The overall environment looks great. Great renditions of sun-sets, starry skies etc. and like I said, the water is decent, too.
Now, the textures are a definition of a mixed-bag. From afar, pretty much everything looks really good, but up close, the textures start getting muddy and even some of the often spectacular explosions and weapons effects look pixilated and blurry halfway up close. I’ve seen better, but I’ve also seen a lot worse.
I’ll agree while not great, overall, the graphics serve their purpose. I don’t think there is a huge difference from this Xbox version and its PS2 counterpart.
Sound/Audio:
The audio portion of the game doesn’t stand out much. While you’re engaging in combat, you’ll hear various commanders yelling out the clichéd lines like “They’re tryin’ to flank us!”, or “One more for the good guys!” While those get annoying, there’s a good enough mix of them so that they don’t drive you mad. The one thing that really pissed me off, though, was the Captain of the entire fleet, every time he talks to you, he refers to you as “son”, but you (Hawk) are clearly not his son because the Captain is an old black man and Hawk is a 20-ish white boy. I promise you, he’ll get on your nerves. And the pilots are so cocky. I can’t think of any of their comments, but they remind me of the guy from “Top Gun” (is it Iceman?) They make you believe they’re the ones winning the battle.
The voice-acting is from terrible to decent, much like the easily forgettable cut-scenes. On the positive side, it has a nice soundtrack, even though there were times of chaos where I wish I could listen to some Guns N’ Roses from my soundtrack, but alas, another developer completely dismisses that that feature even exists. With 5.1 DDSS, it vastly improves, though. You’ll hear rockets and lasers blast off you can’t even see.
Final Thoughts:
I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised with Battle Engine Aquila. While it’s not as good as, say, MechAssault, it’s a decent twist from the seemingly tired Mech genre. It’s not a big-budget title. It’s not from high-profiled developers, but it was a good game that came out of nowhere to me. There are tons of things to unlock, from concept art to multiplayer modes, so it’s a worth contemplating over buying it if you’re a mech fan or flying fan. In the end, it’s nothing that will stick with me for very long, but while I was into it, it was good. I beat it on normal difficulty in about 15 hours, so it’s at least worth a rental, and that’s not counting multiplayer. And there are branching paths; it’s just that it’s very difficult to get to them. An overall good game, give it a try.
