Front Mission Evolved

Quick, how many modern mech games are there for the PC? If you said Mechwarrior, you're too early, and if you mentioned the Crysis Wars Battletech mod, then I envy you. But if you said Front Mission Evolved, then congratulations, we're in the same boat.


I played Front Mission Evolved before Bioshock 2, and I've played Front Mission 4 for the PS2 years ago. In contrast to its tactics heritage, Front Mission Evolved is a third-person mech action game ala Armored Core and the old Mechwarrior series. In addition, it's one of the few mech games for the PC available. Is the novelty enough to sustain the game? In short...no. But for more details, read below.


Premise


The Front Mission series is typically known for its well developed and sensible gameworld and for its tactical action. Front Mission Evolved throws the latter out and kinda poops on the former; that means that Front Mission Evolved is really much more focused on third-person action combat. What both Evolved and the FM series shares however is a deep commitment to mech customization for uber nerds out there.


Gameplay


Fresh from playing Bioshock 2, I'm going to compare the story of Front Mission Evolved to Bioshock's...and in this department, FME falls pretty short. I guess the story is best described as...anime-ish; that is, it's a hog-bosh of different themes that are rarely developed and/or clichéd.The characters are unlikable, clichéd, one-dimensional or poorly developed. It's an okay story I suppose, dealing with hidden weapons technologies/sins of the father/revenge/and the occasional "why do we fight" motif, but like I said, it's pretty stale. This is made even more disappointing because Front Mission 4 had a far more developed story than FME does.


Like I said, anime-ish.

The gameplay in FME is overall satisfactory, though the game mechanics themselves are somewhat clunky. For example, the sprint button allows you to sprint forward and back, but it seems to have trouble moving horizontally and diagonally. In addition, the fuel for sprinting is far too little, even if you choose a mobile mech. It just feels too limiting. In addition, the game focuses a lot on this EDGE system, which is supposed to make your mech really awesome, but it's really just a slo-mo mode for your mech. The problem with it is that it takes too long to charge up, and it expires too quickly. That means that you'll never use it for the small guys (and you don't need to, as they're cannon fodder), but using the EDGE system against a boss doesn't really do anything too drastic. The rest of gameplay is pretty standard, with a mech going through levels with up to four weapons at once, firing missiles/grenades/bullets/etc. If this doesn't seem to describe enough, it's because with the exception of the mechs, the gameplay really is pretty pedestrian.


You have to admit, it does appeal to the testosterone in you.

"huff puff huff"

In terms of customization, FME more or less delivers. You have a bevy of options and attack styles to choose from. You can be a mobile sniper, a giant fu-king tank, and everything in between, and you can mix and match to your delight. Hell, why not carry a shield and brass knuckles with a minigun shoulder weapon? The only thing you need to worry about is power/weight. Power is determined by your torso build, sometimes your legs, and sometimes by other auxiliary compartments, and the more power you have, the more weight you can carry. Thus, it's going to be impossible to be some twig with dual miniguns/bazooka. It's a tactical decision given to the player. Unfortunately, the level design almost always favors close combat/bullet spamming, with generous ammo pickups scattered through the game, so you can forget about the sniper builds. The final problem with customization is that the game artificially limits your choices. Sometimes the game will require that you use a bipedal configuration or a track-wheel configuration, or you're forced to carry a ranged weapon. This is to force the player to try out different mech builds, but it also turns the game into a giant restrictive tutorial. I DO NOT want bipedal chicken legs, I want boss quad legs. Stop forcing me to change the build I like.


Sniper builds are very clunky.

Oh yeah, I hope you like small-head death.

Ahhh, balls.

The gameplay is thus satisfactory until you get to the boss fights, which then turns the game into a frustrating nightmare. The bosses all have far, far more life than you do, and do just as much damage. Your only recourse, however, is the constantly regenerating health and ammo pickups available, so each boss fight is a tired repetition of shooting all your crap at a boss to knock out 5% of his life, get beat up a few times, and then run quickly to a pickup, and rinse and repeat. In most cases, you will be outnumbered, with one fight being one against four, each of them far more powerful than you. This makes the fights, well, unfair. And the boss fights are not exactly open-ended; you're always in a small, limited arena so there's really nowhere to run and no real tactics you can use. If you picked a sniper build, then you might as well slam your head through the monitor. You can imagine the shock I got when I casually breezed through little enemies, only to die four, five times from a bossfight.

The last thing I will crap on is FME's minigame, specifically when you get off the mech and do some run-and-gun as a fleshbag. The game has two minigames, one that's like a turret game, and the other in which you get off your mech, grab a gun, and shoot some idiots. The turret game is fine, and does what it's supposed to. The fleshbag minigame is just crap. It's the most unpolished third person shooter in the past 10 years. There are only two kinds of enemies, generic soldiers and generic mechs.You also only have four weapons: SMG, Shotgun, grenades and a rocket launcher, and you use the guns to pew pew the guys. This is tolerable after one or two levels, but FME seems to want this bland minigame to be a big part of FME, which is where it falls flat. I suppose the only redeeming feature of it is that your rocket launcher carries 15 rounds with ammo powerups everywhere...so you can just use your rocket launcher to shoot everyone.


Bleh. Very, very bleh.

There's also a few mini-objectives, but it's just "destroy 15 hubcaps in a level",and the reward I guess would be achievements. Bleh.


Fun fun fun

I also didn't play the multiplayer, as I played with a bootlegged copy of FME.


System Performance



Minimum:
OS: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
Processor: Intel Pentium D 1.8 GHzor AMD Athlon 64 x2 1.8 GHz
Memory: 1GB RAM (XP), 2GB RAM(Vista/7)
Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 7800series graphics card or equivalent
DirectX®: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 11 GB Free Space
Sound: DirectX® 9.0c compatiblesound card
Controller Support: Mouse, Keyboard,Xbox 360 Controller


Recommended:

OS: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHzor AMD Athlon 64 x2 2.4 GHz
Memory: 2GB RAM (XP), 3GB RAM(Vista/7)
Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800series graphics card or better
DirectX®: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 11 GB Free Space
Sound: DirectX® 9.0c compatible sound card
Controller Support: Mouse, Keyboard,Xbox 360 Controller


The game is a port, so the game's artificially capped at 30 FPS. The game otherwise runs fine, and the mechs look fine also. The rest of the graphics of the game are pretty much satisfactory. Unfortunately, there is no PC demo for the game. Don't rely on the trailers either; the trailers look awesome (as the FM series is known) but check out gameplay trailers instead.


Bugs/Mods/Value/Misc

I didn't notice any particular game-breaking bugs, nor did I notice any mods for the game. The game's at Steam for $30, which is way overpriced. As of writing this review, the game's on sale 75% off, but I really didn't find it worth my money regardless.


Overall Score

7/10



I was surprised that I gave the game such a mediocre score, but the game itself doesn't really do enough to impress. Yeah it's cool to play a mech that you customized, but there are a buttload of restrictions in place. The bosses are frustrating, the gameplay mechanics are mediocre, and the minigames are surprisingly poor. I suppose the only reason to even the get the game are for the mechs, but even then, I'd advise to hold off for the new Mechwarrior game or the Crysis mod. Maybe Front Mission should have stuck to tactical games.







Suggestions

1. Make levels more open-ended rather than linear to allow for more gameplay styles
   
2. Avoid restricting the player's mech design. No one likes it.
3. Heavily rework the boss fights so that they're fair and not grindfests.
4. Get rid of the fleshbag minigame or heavily rework it
5. Make mechs overall more mobile, otherwise the game slows down. Increase burst limits.