Late to the Party: Front Mission 4
Platform: PlayStation 2
Publisher: Square Enix
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail
I've got two piles of games I intend to play. The first is in my office. It's the "new stuff" that I want to play for this blog or to review for a magazine. Then there's the pile next to my personal collection in the living room. These are games I've collected for my personal edification -- stuff I scored used during a Blockbuster promotion or games snagged during the Toys R' Us buy-one-get-one-free deal. Front Mission 4 is in that pile because I dig turn-based strategy. I've played more hours of Advance Wars than I care to admit. And this game feels very similar to the GBA title, only the complexity is turned up more than a few notches.
The mechs in Front Mission 4 are customizable. Weapons and armor can be upgraded, tweaked and even repainted. In combat, each of your mechs can interact via link points, allowing them to assist during offensive or defensive maneuvers. The layers of complication are thick, but not unwieldy. They're the sort of depth that you peel away rather than drown in.
I'm also a big fan of the battlegrounds. They look like the kind of cool locations you'd want to build in miniature for a table-top strategy game if you had the time, talent and patience to paint all those little trees and bridge spans. Right now, I'm thinking my way through a battle on a bridge. My four troops are met with tanks and six mechs. We're outnumbered without a repair mech and through failure I'm slowly formulating a technique for survival.
The story here is a little more complicated than what Advance Wars usually offers. The dialogue isn't as sharp, but I like that they've written in reasons for having only a few "wansers" at your disposal. One one side of the split narrative you're part of a non-military mech research group, assisting in a sort of forenzic investigation of a mysterious attack. On the other you're a squad of aimless soldiers who go A.W.O.L. ala Kelly's Heroes after discovering a Venezuelan dictator's gold stash.
The PSP could really use a rich and graphically pleasing strategy game like this one. An engrossing strategy title could persuade me to give my DS a rest on long plane flights. How about a Front Mission 1-3 collection on UMD, Square-Enix?
Recommended
Publisher: Square Enix
Review Type: Touchy
Version: Retail
I've got two piles of games I intend to play. The first is in my office. It's the "new stuff" that I want to play for this blog or to review for a magazine. Then there's the pile next to my personal collection in the living room. These are games I've collected for my personal edification -- stuff I scored used during a Blockbuster promotion or games snagged during the Toys R' Us buy-one-get-one-free deal. Front Mission 4 is in that pile because I dig turn-based strategy. I've played more hours of Advance Wars than I care to admit. And this game feels very similar to the GBA title, only the complexity is turned up more than a few notches.The mechs in Front Mission 4 are customizable. Weapons and armor can be upgraded, tweaked and even repainted. In combat, each of your mechs can interact via link points, allowing them to assist during offensive or defensive maneuvers. The layers of complication are thick, but not unwieldy. They're the sort of depth that you peel away rather than drown in.
I'm also a big fan of the battlegrounds. They look like the kind of cool locations you'd want to build in miniature for a table-top strategy game if you had the time, talent and patience to paint all those little trees and bridge spans. Right now, I'm thinking my way through a battle on a bridge. My four troops are met with tanks and six mechs. We're outnumbered without a repair mech and through failure I'm slowly formulating a technique for survival.
The story here is a little more complicated than what Advance Wars usually offers. The dialogue isn't as sharp, but I like that they've written in reasons for having only a few "wansers" at your disposal. One one side of the split narrative you're part of a non-military mech research group, assisting in a sort of forenzic investigation of a mysterious attack. On the other you're a squad of aimless soldiers who go A.W.O.L. ala Kelly's Heroes after discovering a Venezuelan dictator's gold stash.
The PSP could really use a rich and graphically pleasing strategy game like this one. An engrossing strategy title could persuade me to give my DS a rest on long plane flights. How about a Front Mission 1-3 collection on UMD, Square-Enix?
Recommended
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