SLAI: Steel Lancer Arena International E3 2005 Preshow Report

Currently scheduled for release this fall, SLAI: Steel Lancer Arena International is a futuristic action game that revolves around the popular sport of robot fighting. SLAI's story mode will purportedly offer more than 50 hours of gameplay, but the game's real selling point will undoubtedly be its online play, which will allow up to four players to battle it out simultaneously.

Intriguingly, SLAI will actually support up to six online players at any one time, although two of you will sit on the sidelines watching the action until someone dies and you jump into the arena to replace him. Locales in the game will include Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, Cairo, and New York.

You'll be able to customize your SLAI mechs by swapping out various body parts and weapons that, according to Konami, allow for more than a million possible variations. In addition to the arsenal of weapons at your disposal, you'll be able to employ special abilities such as optical camouflage, which will make your mech virtually invisible to other players for a time.

Further details on SLAI: Steel Lancer Arena International are scare at present, save for the fact that the game's customizable soundtrack will feature more than 90 different songs. We'll bring you more information on the game as soon as it becomes available.