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News: E3 2010 Mecha Musings

Posted on : 16-06-2010 | By : | In : News

Hardware: , ,

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The swirling chaos that is E3 is almost over, and while it will be some time before anyone can make sense of what this raw data pulse from the games industry actually means, there have been a few mecha-related sightings and announcements for the observant mechanical fanatic.

One of the biggest surprises of the show came in this trailer for the campaign of Halo: Reach, which revealed the presence of space fighter combat. While a lot of FPS fans were shocked by the news, Halo has always had an emphasis on using vehicles, so this is really just an extreme extension of that. More interesting to mecha gaming fans, perhaps, is how Real Robot the Spartan designs now look. While we have talked about the Spartan design and its similarities to Yutaka Izubuchi’s work before, specifically the GM Sniper II and GM Command, the comparison to Japanese Real Robot design is even more pronounced now. The squad of Spartans we see all have different kinds of equipment, and therefore distinct visual looks, which describe their role type on the battlefield. This is something that mecha games have been doing for years and now more mainstream games are finally catching up. Some of the interviews and information being leaked out talk about being able to customize your player character Spartan with different weapons, equipment and aesthetic features, making the character more like a human wearing powered armor and less like a generic guy with guns (something we talked a bit about last week with Vanquish).

Speaking of Vanquish, there’s a gameplay video from the E3 floor which shows the protagonist hopping on and controlling what reminds me of the Regult battle pod from Macross. Vanquish continues to look as amazing as ever and the interesting mixture of Western and Japanese game ideas will hopefully inject some much-needed lifeblood into the ‘third person shooter’ genre.

And more directly mecha related, I was happy to see in the new Warhammer 40,000 MMO trailer some of the massive robotic weapons the Warhammer 40k universe has to offer. While actual details on the game are currently light, and no one seems to be able to tell us whether we will control some of these mechanical monstrosities or if they’re just the 40k MMO equivalent to World of Warcraft’s raid bosses, it does seem as if the developer is trying to incorporate some of the more epic-scaled elements of the 40k universe rather than just making the WoW clone that everyone else is trying to make. I refuse to believe there can be anything bad about a fictional universe that agrees with Mobile Suit Gundam’s assertion that vehicles painted red go faster, at any rate.

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Comments (5)

Interesting write up, Im surprised you didnt mention that new MGS game with Raiden, I just watched the Konami PC, from what the producer says it sounds like the gameplay is based on speed, rather than hiding against walls etc, he reffered to it as like the first trailer of MGS4 where you see Raiden chopping up the Gekko’s, surposedly thats how the gameplay will be, and watching the short vid, did remind me of ZOE and AC4, so it will be interesting to see how that one shapes up.

So far Vanquish looks the most mecha to me, even though is a power suit, it very much reminds me of bubble gum crisis, if they ever made a game to that series I figure it would be like Vanquish.

So what ever happend to that new MW game? was that at e3?

And what about Front Mission Devolved? 😀

Sorry I saw the trailer for the story and while I love B-movies, I feel its a disgrace for a franchise that has always had a very real political well sought out story, to be replaced by garbage, then again that has always been the western way, lets just blow shit up who cares why, especially when you have giant robots to do it.

TBH after e3 FM is looking even more weak to me.

Vanquish plays like a dream! Infinite dash FTW.
Front Mission is a little disappointing, hidden away on one kiosk in the MS section. Speaks volumes really. I’ll still pick it up though, I think…
No Metal Gear Rising at the show. Dead Space 2 looks very good and Isaac’s suit has little Gundam style verniers for the zero G stuff. Kinda mecha-ish. maybe?

The VANQUISH footage looks absolutely stunning. I’m still trying to pick my jaw off the floor.

Interesting note about HALO, since Shinji Aramaki directed “The Package” segment from HALO LEGENDS.

Aramaki also designed the early power armor seen in The Prototype…

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRSpMqjV8cg%5D

Right on, Cacophanus! That one had slipped my mind! It’s also interesting to note that the director of “The Prototype” is also a protoge of Ichiro Itano, the man behind the “Itano Circus”.

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