Vets test your skills, everyone else steer clear of this one...

User Rating: 7 | Armored Core: Nine Breaker PS2
Armored Core in General:

-For those that are new to the Armored Core (AC) series, this is about the worst place to start. The AC series is the best mech-sim I've touched (not that there are a lot out there). If you end up liking this you can always go back and try the classics. Prepare yourself for a crap-ton of parts to build your own mech (armored core they call em). Take most things you can imagine from any similar mech themed game (gundam, ZOE, mechassault) and this game has it and then some. You'll take the role of Raven, which is what they call the mercenary pilots that operate the armored cores. Enjoy destroying various and numerous amounts of lesser mechs and robotic foes, as well as fellow ravens in their own AC's as you progress through the game(s). The series loosely follows a continuous storyline based of a sci-fi twisted version of our own future. I'll tell straight though, for newcomers the controls and overall game play can be pretty unforgiving. Many reviews I read label the series as being slow and clunky, but I just don't see it that way. For a 'mech sim' it plays pretty well. A fair mix between manual and automatic movement and aiming and such. Sure it's nothing like zone of the enders where you are boosting and flying everywhere almost non stop (but that game isn't quite what I'd call a sim either). Your reflexes and movement will actually have to be better then anything I did in ZOE to master this one. Granted I loved ZOE, but for comparative reasons...slow and clunky this game is not. Anyways that probably wasn't the best way to explain it-but trust me, once you get the hang of both the controls and designing your mechs right-the game play can (and most likely will be) pretty fast paced and fluid.

Ninebreaker:

This game has a very different setup from the rest. In that it is pretty much just a training game. It has an ok arena with a robust search feature. The rest is ALL training missions…and lots of em too. You start out with 3 of the 6 categories open. Each category has about 3 different exercises with around 5+ stages. The missions are very specified and cover everything from steering, building, shooting, and dodging.

The good thing about this game is it helps further train you in not only AC piloting but how to tailor your ac for specifics. I’ll admit that I seemed to have learned a few tricks and came out a better AC pilot thanks to this game. I altered a lot of my old favorite AC designs and made some new ones. Got better at dodging different types of missiles I wasn’t used to facing, and learned a bit more about balancing heat and energy then I had from Nexus.

The bad thing about this game is…unless you converted nexus data you’ll have a very very rough start. You’ll have to do numerous arena fights to earn enough credits to start tailoring lame starter AC for the training missions. Otherwise you’ll have to be a miracle worker to pass a majority of the missions.

The AI seems trickier then Nexus was-enemies seemed to be better at avoiding your offense, better at using cover and flushing you out of yours. The real challenge is trying to do all the missions with one solidly built unit and even harder (if not impossible) would be to get all gold ranks with that unit! Best I could do in my week of play was get 115/150 golds tailoring a mech for almost each category. I was content with that though and doubt I could have got all 150 gold even if I had spent a few hours on each stage of each category tailoring and re-attempting.

In the end this is a game I’d say only get if you’re a bit of a vet (and hopefully have some nexus save data). It'll test your skills and maybe teach ya some knew tricks. Otherwise go get nexus, last raven, or an older one-this one isn't for new ravens.