The bad news already starts with the introduction movie. Thanks to the graphical beauty, the eye-stunning animations and incredible directing these images managed to get the following reaction from me: "What.... the.... fuck?...." This must be the work of an intern, in between eating his cornflakes! And I hope that you've discovered my slight form of irony by now.

That first impression continues in the game. But let's first go deeper into the production of this title. Next to the hidious intro also the in-game graphics are horrible. Even for a budget PS2 title the visual aspect is beneath all standards. Although by now we've gotten used to beautiful games on Xbox, we get to see mostly 2D vegetation, textures that I believe have no resolution what so ever and a hud that's so big and ugly that I first thought something was wrong with the settings of my screen. The Mechs themselves aren't too bad, but then the animations start to ruin it again. You don't have to buy this game for the eye candy.

Also the sound is utter crap. At a certain moment I thought the sound effects and music were blocked, but apparantly this was just another way to create tension. Like the frustration of playing this doesn't create enough tension already!

You can already guess it: also the gameplay doesn't manage to make you forget the rest of the flaws. Although the makers on this aspect appear to be more capable in doing their jobs, the result is still far insufficient to to leave you with a good feeling. Nice is the fact that at the start of a mission you can choose your own AWGS (Armoured Walking Gun System) and set it up by choosing the kinds of weapons you want. Unfortunately, they all look too much the same in actual use and with the boring menus and graphics your urge to spend a lot of time with this drops faster than a meteorite that enters earth's atmosphere. By the way: you can make the same choices for the machine of your team mate.

There's also a multiplayer component present, but due to lack of opponents, I couldn't test it extensively. The big advantage of this part is of course that you can play against human, and thus smarter, adversaries, but at no time could I call my escapades on Live exciting due to the lag that was present.

The little varied mission goals consist out of destroying objectives or enemy Mechs, or protecting and escorting transports. I can't say that this game doesn't give you a challenge: you often run out of ammo, the enemies will come at you in huge numbers (unfortunately you often can't see them due to bushes) and regularly you'll get a time limit that doesn't make any sense to me. Luckily the AI of these opponents isn't all too great, but the same can be said from your own squad. You can give the command all you want, but it won't make much difference.

The helicopter pilot that supplies you during a mission would be laid off if it were up to me. You have to stand straight under his chopper before he decides to act and half of the time he manages to stop right there where a pack of enemies are having a pick-nick. Due to all these problems the sometimes heavy and intense fights couldn't really grab me into the game.

The controls tend to be reasonably good. Although I never had the feeling of working with heavy machines (rather with a can on wheels), they're easy to get used to and you'll feel the difference between the different types (a heavy one will be slower than a light type). Unfortunately this small point of light get ruined again by an awkward interface on screen (the HUD).