by Don Emery

Created on: May 14, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

Back in 2001 Capcom made an interesting game named Steel Battalion for the Original Xbox. What made this game so interesting was that it was a very special game with a new type of an experience. I mean it is a mech game which is not a new genre but the difference is that most other mech games leave you behind a controller or a keyboard this is where Steel Battalion makes its presence known. Steel Battalion gives you a forty button controller and a three pedal controller for your feet. You read it right, a forty button controller that has two flight simulator type joysticks with a dial for in-game communication and the pedal extension is like something you would find in you car or any other racing wheel peripheral. For the first time you felt like you felt like you were in control of a real life mechanized robot.

Pros:

The controller

The controller itself is the game's greatest strength, how could it not be? What other game gives you a dedicated forty button controller? Half of the game's challenge lies in you mastering that mammoth of a controller.

Difficulty

Now you would assume that a game developer would use the controller as a gimmick to a sub-par game but you would be wrong here. Capcom follows up with the peripheral with a challenging game so much so that the other half of the game's challenge is the game itself. Even on the normal difficulty this is an incredibly difficult game and if you find the normal difficulty to be too easy you can adjust the difficulty into higher levels to the highest one that is magnum force. Playing at the harder levels you can unlock other features such as more features for your vertical tank which adds re-playability to the game.

Presentation

The cockpit is actually very nice visually, it feels very realistic and I hope you like seeing the inside of the cockpit because you will spending a lot of time in it. The vertical tanks or the mech's themselves feel very realistic they are slow, bulky, and the bigger they are the less nimble they become but this adds intensity to your battles also this realism makes you approach a battle in a tactical sense.

Cons:

Small amount of voice overs

There are no voice overs in the mission briefings what so ever so that means you will be reading text for them. The only voice overs you will hear in the game is in the missions themselves which even those are average at least.

Frustration

If you die in a mission you have to start from the beginning of the campaign and the only way to avoid this is to eject in time so you can try mission again. Both add realism to the game but are very annoying, especially later in the campaign and even if you escape it costs points that if you run out you have to start from the beginning of the campaign as well.

I would rate Steel Battalion a seven out of ten it is a different experience that could turn could out to be a collectors item with Capcom's discontinued production of this game but if you do not like mech games avoid it.

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