anyone daring to get this monster game. Weighing in at around £250 (incl delivery) and approx 8 kilos this has to be one of the most bizarre 'one off' games ever.. Hopefully our first shipment will be in tomorrow, guess what I'll be doing tomorrow night. I'll come back with some impressions.. I wont post any piccies here but here's a link if anyone's interested and doesn;t know what the game is about.. http://www.next-gen.co.uk/tekki.html
Been interested in this baby every since I laid eyes on it... Mecha stuff is great IMO and I would import this baby if its not coming out over here in Europe. I just hope that there are other games that will use the controller too...
feel free to have a look at some piccies and first impressions.. the game really is something special, but fo course it'd have to be at the price.. http://boards.gamers.com/messages/message_view-topic.asp?name=nextgen&id=zuyzb
Isn't this coming out in the states as "steel battalions" anyway? Fancy this for christmas to be honest : see the controller lights up ?? ( or has it been photoshopped??)
out on US 1st December mate (at the mo) . Lights do come on when booting sequence for starting up mech. Very cool
Mind you for that money you'd have thought they could have chucked in an online multiplayer option with VON capability (actually they could have given you an in-mech cd player on the controller and some furry dice too!)
Any news on the US version of this game or a UK release? I'm hoping it gets released in the UK as well, but I was wondering if the US version was any different than the Jap version. Right now, I've heard nothing but good things about this game, but I'm waiting for some solid reviews that address the game itself, without relying so much on the "cool, it's a giant controller" aspect of it before parting with this much disposable income.
I doubt you will see it in Europe, we do not have the market to sustain such a product. I could be wrong
I hope you're wrong, but you're probably right. (isn't that a Billy Joel song? ) It sucks though. Oh well, I better start saving up for postage.
Gah! You cause me pain Well in an effort to encourage you, and like minded people to get and play this game here's some thoughts of mine. I finally got around to buying Tekki / Steel Battalion this year. One significant hurdle was not currently owning a Xbox, but i've borrowed a mates, and the second was availability, but since the LOC servers have been turned off, and its sorta old now, people have been dumping copies "cheap". When i say cheap i mean compared to the original huge pricetag. Sorry about the carpet, teh English have no taste sometimes. So what is it? Well its a mecha game, which is firmly in the sim side. You pilot large "Vertical Tanks" (VT) and are engaged in a post-modern fight between two asian powers. Queue generic sotryline. I have to say the production values are outstanding; the controller obviously, but it gets "gritty mech" down so well i fail to see how it could be improved, apart from obvious things like more bots/players online (re: Chromehounds) and more realistic trees etc. It certainly is NOT Armored Core or other arcadey mecha, but the pace is faster than i was led to believe, as you can use the Plasma Torch weapons to dash, much like using the Samurai Blades in AC, and lights going flat out with Override are very fast. Combat itself is more sedate, with turning speeds quite low, slow rate of weapon fire and no jumping/flying (well very limited). It does make for more tatical combat, as positioning can actually be important and luring with your wingmen and so on. While this makes it seem superfically sound a little like Mech Assault, a game i hated with a passion, its more like Mech Warrior games, as you can take far less punishment and must be quite careful in avoiding slugfests. The top (with your guns) can independatly rotate in your front 180 degree arc, and you can do dash/sidesteps as long as you have battery energy to do so, which recharges over time, but uses fuel. You can carry extra fuel and also call in supply drops, but each has costs in either speed/performance of pure cash and the danger of refueling in a battlezone. The latter also replenishes your ammo, which obviously is needed depending on mission length or your triggerfinger. Guns are a variety of large bore cannons, missiles down to "machine guns", which are like 80-140mm! think of an M1 Abhram at fully auto, and later railguns (woot!). The death = delete-save-file isnt as annoying as people say, it gives you a fair amount of time to eject, which combined with supply-points to buy more VTs means it more a mechanism to give a limited number of lives, like an arcade game say. Ultimately i think its a bad idea as it cuts down your willingness to experiment with different tactics, or play it less safe. Yes you can do "Free Mission" games, but in the campaign proper it would be nice to try out weird ****. I suppose thats part of the grittiness, the fear of destruction is real, moreso than any game i've ever played i think, which adds a tension behind my left eyeball when the controls start lighting up! Purely as a game it's good, but not outstanding, but as an experience it is amazing. just running thru the start sequence brings a smile to my face. I had to get a special cable to get DD5.1 and link it to my projector, but the surround sound and 100" screen are mindblowing (the size helps resolve that tiny view-field of 1st gen VTs). Given its uniquness i certainly recommend playing it at least once as it IS a slice of mecha history, which i doubt we will see repeated any time soon, and its probably the only reason to keep an Xbox around as it looks like it will never get the 360 backwards compatibility treatment. Just a pity it was made for Bill's bastard love-child and not a more popular machine...
I have the original SB, and I am also guilty in that it is still sealed. Just haven't had the time to set the thing up. I am very ashamed of myself.
Good, now get it out and play the thing! I was a bit unimpressed with the Spoiler respawning VTs on level 6 (i think, where you investigate the base) , so hope there's not too much more of that. Great fun, but i am more of an action mecha person really, so i wonder how Armored Core 4 will turn out. Hopefully better than Ninebreaker and Last Raven, which have been a bit cack to be honest. EDIT: and i dont suppose a mod can change the title to Tekki / Steel battalion, as not everyone knows the original Japanese name for the game?
Double-posty thread-necro goodness! As Rock Band kicked off some discussion about controllers, and then Tekki / Steel Battalion came up, here's a resurrection. Still a great game, pulled it out last crimbo / new year 2008 and it's aged well - but oh my diety(s) have i forgot how hard it is. No casual-friendly stuff here but very satisfying. I encourage people to get into the loft and dust off your copies! And so does my cat Siouxie:
I've still got my Xbox and never did open this after buying the re-released version that was packaged with Line of Contact.
So it's still sealed and never opened? Still you may be able to flog it for a bit more, as there's still a market. LOC has a core following on the Xbox(1), and they often need new controllers as things wear with age: http://www.steelbattalion.org/ You'll have to click thru to the Line of Contact forums, it's blocked at my work. But really you should play it, it's a classic fusion of gameplay and controller, and is pretty much the definitive mech sim. They had one setup at the London Science Museum two years ago(?) for the gaming show, but few instructions so i ended up doing a bit of training (and then brutalised people on Guitar Hero ), and it went down very well.
crumbs..memories eh Well I think I may just dust my Steel Battalion off this weekend and have a bash..it is an amazing experience on a projector