Concept: MA Puts you in the shoes of MechWarrior Valen, and pits you against the evil enemy faction AMS. During your campaign against these traitors, you’ll fight mostly in large mecha (with a third-person view), but you have the abilty to leave it at any time. Should you do so, however, one shot and you’re dead. Some missions have you in your Battle Armor (a personal armor, a lot smaller than a mecha), which has very low combat abilities, high jumping capabilities, and the skill of being able to latch onto walls (to scale them) and enemies (to hack them). And some missions (only a few) even force you to fight without any type of armor, and only a “pilot bomb” as armament.

Before each new area, there is normally a short (but sweet) cutscene, and the whole game features a great voice over (No text dialog whatsoever).

Delivery: You control your mech with the d-pad and the camera/aiming recticle with the buttons. As you may or may not know I hate this idea which is common on the PSP. But for some reason I found it very responsive; and unlike most third-person shooters, the level of precision required from your weapons is greatly reduced. This means you’re not going to have to try to position the cursor using the cumbersome buttons interface. However, for all those finickers out there, there is also a touch screen control scheme, a la Metroid. There are three levels of control here, separated by the “radar” circles. Each level provides a verying level of sensitivity. It’s a great concept, but I never could get used to it. It’s a shame, really.

As for the mech, there are a ton of them to try out in the campaign mode. They are pretty varied, both in abilites/weapons and in look. I never really got sick of the mecha levels, but I thought there should have been a “god” mecha unlockable for use in single player game. Where I really found the most enjoyment, however, was in the battle armor levels. I wish there were more, but I really enjoyed them.

Originality: I’ve never played a MechAssault or MechWarrior game before, so i can’t really opine on that (but I’m definitely going to check them out now!). However, there is one aspect that I really, really love about this game that I’ve not seen in a mecha game: the ability to leave your mech at any time. So, in some levels, you start out in your battle armor, then you have to leave it to hack a terminal which grants you access to a Mech which you then enter. (More on this below)

As for DS unique features, we’ve got very few. There’s a radar and some buttons on the touch screen (very similar to Metroid (at least the demo I played, haven’t cracked open my own copy yet)), and most of the action is on the top screen. We only use the touch screen for the hacking puzzles, and if you opt to use the touch screen control scheme.

Difficulty: The game is pretty easy, I flew through it a couple of hours, save a few levels. One has you doing some insane hacking (did it about 20 times before I got it), and the other is the main boss. None of the combat situations gave me any trouble save the last boss (likewise, it took me around 20 times to beat it). So, all in all, it’s a pretty easy game.

This brings us to the main negative point: the length. The game lasts maybe 3 hours. And that’s stretching it. Once you beat it, you have the ability to replay all the campaign levels, and a local multiplayer mode. You unlock some cheats, but nothing spectacular. So, once all is said and done you basically have a very pretty (and possibly expensive) paper weight.

Off Topic Tidbit: All in all I loved the game despite its very short length. However, I can only dream as I see this engine as the base for a future, more realistic 0079 Gundam game. Just imagine it: You’re in a damaged Gundam fighting off Ramba Ral in his Gouf while trying to defend the White Base from the remaining Zakus, tanks and Dopps. You’re almost dead, so you eject and take off in the Core Fighter, using it to destroy some fighters. After landing at White Base, you relaunch in the GunCannon and take out the enemy forces. However, you have to rush back to the White Base, as it is under attack by ground forces, so you get out of your Mobile Suit and fight off the troops in a Syphon Filter style shootout.

Oh man… I can only dream. But Bandai, if you’re out there, I would pay a fortune for this game, so please make it for me… Only dream…