Gundam 3D Operation Impressions

TOKYO--Bandai's Gundam games aren't as alien to American mobile games as many of the other games on the Tokyo Game Show floor. Indeed, Bandai has already released two Gundam games, Gundam Atlantic Battle and Gundam Space Assault, on Sprint PCS. These stellar side-scrolling action games stood out in a sea of boilerplate space shooters and tedious parlor games, and they received critical acclaim for planting fast-twitch gaming in the supposedly barren soil of the mobile platform. It turns out that Bandai has more excellent mobile Gundams up its sleeve, albeit only for the Japanese market. In particular, Gundam 3D Operation reduces those same 2D Gundams to the same stature of their antiquated early-model competition. This game may have been released six months ago in Japan, but its advanced texture mapping and zippy frame rate would fit more readily into our frame of reference as the characteristics of a next-generation N-Gage game.

Gundam 3D Operation is a fully 3D, third-person robot combat extravaganza. You outfit your giant metal exoskeleton (called a Gundam) with all sorts of nasty hardware, and then have at another robot in a large, topographically varied landscape. Your tools of the trade can include Gatling guns, lasers, and even lightsabers and shields. This game's coolest feature by far, however, is your robot's jetpack, which you can use to escape from sticky situations--or to swoop down on an unsuspecting foe. This perk isn't unlimited, unfortunately. Sustained jetpacking will drain your energy meter down to zero, at which point you will have to wait, earthbound, as the meter gradually recharges. Gundam 3D Operation definitely requires the use of both hands to play correctly, but the controls aren't at all difficult. Focus on the jetpack and attack keys, and you'll be just fine.

Allow us to reiterate once more: Japanese phones, on the whole, are better than American phones--and FOMA phones are so vastly superior that they may as well have been forged on the anvil of Hephaestus. Gundam 3D Operation, a downloadable Java game that is approximately six months old, looks about as good as a second-generation PlayStation game and runs at 18 to 20 frames per second on a typical FOMA handset. This is the sort of performance that can move an avid American mobile gamer to tears and nausea simultaneously.

As one might expect, we don't anticipate an American or European release of Gundam 3D Operation anytime soon. For more updates, be sure to check GameSpot's coverage of Tokyo Game Show 2004.