XBLIG Trial Impression – Mech Gladiator
Ah, the holidays are FINALLY over. And when I finally started paying attention to Twitter instead of playing Quake (yeah, that’s what I said. The game from 1996. I’m working my way slowly but surely through it on Hard difficulty to get ready for Nightmare) there were some neat looking games out in the indie games section for once. And Mech Gladiator was one of them. The trial honestly isn’t all that great in the fact that it only gives you the first level on Easy … not even 8 minutes worth of gameplay there because you actually have to TRY to die. BUT it is interesting.
The presentation is a mixed bag because even though the graphics are drop dead gorgeous with great character and enemy models (at least from what I’ve seen of the trial and the 4 minute video trailer) the sound is pretty generic, and the music sounds like something out of an old DOS game.
The gameplay is pretty simple, you run around destroying this great big screen filling enemy. When you shoot, it automatically locks on to a target, you can jump and you can dash. Now, I’m not a big fan of the auto targeting, I’d rather target the thing myself personally and it really did take away from the challenge drastically. But from the “how to play” part, it does have manual aiming for the multiplayer which DOES support either System Link or Xbox Live … which is a HUGE plus. Although it only supports 2 players. I would like to see 4 to 8 players personally, I think that’d be pretty comfortable.
I never give ratings to trials, but when I get MS Space Bucks to spare, I may pick this one up because it’s only 80 points and I’m interested in seeing the other two enemies and the other difficulty levels. And maybe playing it over Xbox Live sometime. The controls seem pretty solid, I don’t know if there are more powerful weapon pickups or not because what you’ve got seems pretty dinky. But at 80 points, it may be worth a gamble. And the fact that they fit this into 18 meg is pretty cool in itself.
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