Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (Target in Sight)

BACKGROUND (updated 10 June 2007) - Gundam is a Japanese Animation series. A Giant Robot Space Saga between the Earth Colonial Forces and a vaguely Nazi Empire. The game follow more of the, shall we say, background stories of the TV series. You play in some of the many battles, just not specifically within the main story lines.

Your vehicles of choice are a variety of giant mobile suits, or Robots, armed to the teeth with ranged and hand-to-hand weapons.

THE GAME - I see very little reason why this title was published on the Playstation 3 when from what I can see it would look just as good and play just as clunky on the PS2. Apart from the nice damage point graphics (which you hardly get to see anyway) this feels like a Playstation 2 game released on the PS3 without any further effort.

The response time of the game is extremely slow and makes the very much manual locking systems very unsatisfying. You get beaten to a pulp while simply trying to turn around. Now I have seen the anime and I know that the vehicles were not that slow!

Then there is the strategy element, which was what I was particularly looking for. Control over your team consists of two very basic commands. Combine this with the already clunky interface and you might as well leave your team defending some point while you take on the enemy yourself. That's not strategy! Team mates with a little more intelligence would be helpful too. The two command seem to be the only level of intelligence that have.

There is nothing about this game which says to me "TAKE ME HOME". I rented it, I returned and I won't be taking it out again.

It is very hard to effectively evaluate a game with so many technical issues. Let's just say that it could have been done better. Much much better.