Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire

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We are generally great fans of mech games, and have played many of them. We were psyched when Gundam came out for the PS3 and very disappointed when we played it.

If you haven't watched the animated series or played other Gundam games, you are engaged in a great war involving a set of mechanised large robots fighting another set of almost identical large robots. They can stomp on tanks, kick over buildings and engage in hand to hand energy-sword combat. Think of gigantic samurai warriors who enjoy both blade and gun.

The two sides here are the Federation forces, protecting Earth against the Zeon an Earth colony who has come back to Earth to take over. All of the fighting takes place in various locations on Earth, which by now has had half of its population wiped out by this fighting.

Don't worry too much about plotline here, though. Really what happens is you are dropped into a landscape and told to blow up every enemy unit you find. While most games give you training and guidance at the beginning, this game tosses you into the fray, without even a hint of what to do or how to do it. Expect to get a few sad deaths before you get the hang of things. Of course that's assuming you start out on the standard difficulty level there are five difficulties here, including a 'very easy' suitable for 5 year olds.

Speaking of five year olds, the graphics really needed much more work to be up to PS3 standards. The mechs themselves are OK, with a fair amount of detail, shadowed edges, reflective surfaces little details of logo and lettering and battle scarring. There is a realistic feel to how they move.

On the other hand, the world you tromp around in is PS2 level in quality, if not a little worse. I've definitely seen better water animation in many PS2 games, as well as tree and landscapes.

Gameplay ranges from frustrating to laughable. You get stuck on invisible walls. When you slash at enemies, you go into the "black knight" of the Monty Python Holy Grail movie, where limbs fall off and the robot hobbles after you without any arms. You do get to upgrade as you progress, earning more options. You can customize your suits in your hangar but the interface is very clunky and looks almost PS1 in style.

They do have some nice features that show some thought if you fire off a rocket style weapon, a cloud of smoke envelops you and you have to wait a few seconds (or move out of it) before you can see well again.

I have to comment on sound because first, the voice actors in combat are very silly. Second, the soundtrack is almost *exactly* a rip-off from the Gladiator soundtrack. I own and love the Gladiator soundtrack and it's amazing how many sections are pretty much exactly the same. I'm surprised there isn't a copyright suit being launched here.

In addition, we had problems with stuttering sound, to the point that we had to reboot our PS3 and try again. Luckily, it went away once we did that.

In general, this was just not a fun game for us to play, which was a real disappointment. Maybe a future release for the PS3 will have the time spent to fix many of these issues and draw us into playing it repeatedly, like we play our other mech games.

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Let me start by saying I'm a Gundam fan, but not a fanbay;I can't name every mobile suit or character name, heck until recently I thought the Gouf MS was pronounced "Goth", like in Gothic. On to the review.

Graphics: 4.85/5 Sweet, but I've seen seen a little sicker graphics on my PC, albeit that my PC has almost all the latest hardware. Still, this is the best looking Gundam game to date. It's almost mind blowing.

Game play: 4/5 It plays like a revamped version of MS Gundam: Federation V. Zeon. The controls are very good, but the R2 button for the sniper mode is very sensitive; if your finger even lightly brushes up against it you go into sniper mode, which is really annoying. There are two campaigns: Federation and Zeon. There are four levels of difficulty: Easy, normal, hard and very hard. Lots of mobile suits from the one year war, all of which are customizable. Pilots gain levels and become better over time.

Difficulty: Varies

Replay value: 4.50/5 It has two campaigns; each can take any where from 4 to 7 hours or up to complete. It has new-game+ type of feature that allows you to keep all your MS, Pilot levels, cash, and rank which all carry over to your next play through, but the difficulty level is automatically up-ed by one each time. Plus it takes multiple play throughs to get the best pilots and other sweet stuff like the MS suits that the enemy uses.

Pros: Lots of Mobile Suits. Strategy and RPG elements. Two different campaigns. High replay value. Best graphics for a Gundam game to date.

Cons: R2 button issues. Needs another difficulty mode to account for replays. No space missions. No character voices or anime pilot scenes like in previous Gundam games.

Overall: A very good game for anyone whose into Gundam or giant robot type games.

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I was extremely surprised when I started playing this game. From all the reviews I expected the game to have horrible play value (others have claimed the music is choppy or the framerates drop at random times). I have not had choppy music problems. The only time I had something like a framerate problem was when the camera was panning just before a battle, or a drop in framerate when the mission briefing was loading. But it was never bad enough to mess up gameplay.

The mobile suits are all beautifully rendered with a high level of detail. There is also a large number of mobile suits available in the game. There is a linear gameplay of missions ranging in Australia, to SE asia, the middle east, and Africa. There are a few maps that are rather small, but usually it isn't too small to hinder battles. Most of the maps are about the right size (small enough to prevent you from having to constantly boost for a while to get anywhere, and large enough to make it easy to retreat from a battle momentarily, or to prevent the mobile suits from all bunching up).

The maps have outer limits from which the enemy can enter the battlefield. However they can span a ways away from this limit. Making it impossible to reach them and attack them (this is especially hindered if your mobile suit has a short range since in late game several enemies begin attack at long range from behind this limit).

Over all I found the game entertaining. If you are used to gameplay like in Federation vs Zeon, then you should love this game.

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In a nutshell, buy the game NEW. And buy the game from someone who isn't GoHastings if you can't afford the return shipping fee.

Recently, I bought this game on a whim for a friend, seeing how he loved the Gundam franchise.

I got the game in the mail shortly after ordering it, which was impressive...but something doesn't seem quite right on the menu for the sound. My friend chalks it up to an "ambient feeling", but a quick search on YouTube showed that the choppy sounds were not the title screens music at all. Further problems is a higher chance of it freezing up than the other games I have...and it happens right when you LEAST need it to happen, since missions can be hard for beginning players. The menu also lags a little before getting into actual gameplay...and there is no custom playlist setting.

It could be a badly written disc out of the lot, or a well made copy...whatever the case...I couldn't play the game with music and character audio due to how choppy they were. Sound effects were perfectly fine, so it really played out to a strange, yet fitting feel to the battlefield with the gunfire and the mecha sounds when they went to attack. As a result, the voice acting and the music had no bearing on this game.

I was able to play some "Here Comes Char" for some good laughs when you can replay your missions once you've beaten the game campaign scenario for either Zeon or Earth Federation...missions that all take place on Earth. No space battles here for you Newtypes out there.

Unit customization falls into three categories (excluding pilot level): Unit Settings, Main Weapon, and Basic Stats.

-Unit settings are pretty generic terrain mobility boosting skins for the Mobile Suits and Armors, the only two being different are the original settings and the mandatory-for-tanking Heavy setting (which takes some booster thrust time and trades it in for defense).

-Main Weapons are obtained from upgrading your basic stats under the Weaponry option. They cater to the player's choice, ranging from the Kampfer's Shotgun to the infamous Beam Rifle to the Zaku Machine Gun. Every unit is set with the basic weaponry that would be considered canon for that unit (Gundams do not get shotguns, Guntanks do not get anymore than their starting equipment, etc.).

-Basic stats are about boost time for double jumps, attack, and defense. Weapons are, as mentioned above, considered a stat to upgrade.

Of course, none of this works to your advantage if your pilot level is low, since the units respond faster to a higher level pilot. Mobility, Accuracy, you know the drill.

I can't say anything for the storyline, since the audio was so choppy on my copy, it was left unaudible...but it seems like a "forgotten war heroes" sort of storyline, with you playing through the Earth-based missions. Story mode works like this, do a mission before the date reaches the completion date for points you trade in to repair, upgrade, or hire assistant pilots with. Repairs to the Mobile Suits/Armors takes time away from your missions, and pilot psyche also affects stats...it's easy to break apart, but it builds to a complex and sometimes frustrating system if you manage to take enough damage to put a unit out of commission for a while. Upgrades take a few days too to complete, but luckily, this is in-game time, which really just means giving up a few turns for missions.

Training missions are an exception though, as they do not damage units, and you still have the day to work off of after that mission.

Your partner AI on the first play through is going to be annoying until you hire some of the Zeon or Federation Aces...once you hire the aces, you'll be amazed how competent an AI partner can be.

And lest I forget in this review, limbs can be shot off, which makes this very useful in combat. Shoot off the right arm (either from upper or lower, shoulder pads do nothing to hinder movement) to disable the main gun, the head for vulcan cannons if they have them, or the left arm to get rid of the shield...but they can still attack with kicking (or chest vulcans if they have them), even if all three of these are missing.

In a nutshell, the game is not for casual gamers...nor is it really for someone outside of the fanbase if the game, as a whole in production, does indeed have all these problems I faced...but maybe you can work past it if you imagine it like you're playing through some of 8th MS Team.

It's a great addition to the series with some solid realism elements, but it's not for the easily frustrated.

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You would expect a PS3 game to have amazing graphics, game play and be just plain fun. This is NOT that kind of game.

The good news.

*There is a Gundam game for the PS3 and the Gundam suits look pretty good.

*The opening cutscene looks amazing.

The Bad news

*The opening cutscene looks nothing like the actual game. If all you care about is graphics, this is not the game for you. You would expect this game to be on the ps1 or even the Sega Saturn, but not the most powerful next gen system. The battle areas are bland, with no detail past the muddy looking ground and poorly animated trees. There are glitches everywhere in the game such as water going through trees and when your Mech tries to cross a bridge and falls in, the water just sits there. The other thing about the graphics is that the frame rate is clunky, it's as if you're constantly blinking and don't see every fluid movement. Only you're not blinking, you're seeing the actual game.

*The missions are straight forward and take no skill whatsoever considering the lock on system is more than accurate because you don't even need to face your enemy completely to hit them.

*The controls are mushy and don't respond well.

*It's tedious to make your Mechs and maintain them. When damage is done to them, YOU MUST repair them because you can't continue the game otherwise.

It's bad enough this game had to be released for the PS3. The very idea that people will buy this at launch makes me very very sad. This is not worth paying for a $ system and you should let this game collect dust on the shelf of your local game retailer.