Simply bigger, better, and louder than the original. The SP is short, but the Conquest Mode is better than Halo 2 online
User Rating: 9.2 | MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf (Limited Edition) XBOX
The gameplay is simple but intuitive and fun. The addition of the Battle Armor to NeuroJack enemy Mechs as ingenius and plays a strategic roll in online battles as you can ride a friendly Mech and this well prevent an enemy NeuroJack at critical times. MA 2 has alot of vehicles 31 Mechs including the new Assault Mech class, which are massive and the new speedy Raptors and Stiletto are essential in CTF matchs. If you don't have a Mech don't worry the Battle ARmor is a blast to play with and lobbing mortar shells never gets old in battle. There are two Rommel Tank types with nil signature and two weapons including a cannon, which can gave your team advantage by knocking a Mech down with its blast. The VTOL plane is evasive, but is strategic in supplying your team with supplies and it has lock-on rockets if needed. You can get into Gun Turrents as well as plant explosive charges on the ground to blow up buildings and vehicles. All these new vehicles, as well as, the ability to get out of Mechs onto battlefield creates alot of gaming and strategic possibilites in battle. Let you imagination run wild cause your not limited anymore in the Mech universe. The Mechs control beautifully and I knew they would from the original. I was more concerned about the VTOL and Tanks and I'm happy to say the sontrols feel good from the start. Overall the controls are polished. The graphics push the Xbox to its max and a few framerate drops or clipping shows up and the occasional field of vision draw far off in the distance, but these are small complaints with the poly count on the Mechs and vehicles. They have a reflective sheen on them that reflects lights and add immersion. The animations are all smooth and the explosions are the largest and most powerful looking on Xbox. The progressive lighting that overwhelms the object and explodes into fire, dust, and smoke followed by subsequant outgoing Heat Wave Blast radius are sights to behold and are lovingly produced. Some of the texture details are alittle lacking by this is 3 year old hardware and the graphics on Xbox always seem to impress. The sound is enveloping with excellent directional effects. The voice acting always seems believable even when the story is lacking. Papa Roachs title song has a catchy hook to it, but the ingame rock music gets alittle old. The online reveals that of Halo 2. MA2 has 10 total online game types all with Opti and QuickMatch options, which Halo 2's may be better overall, but MA2's Conquest Mode is simply superior to any of Halo 2's online modes. Conquest is a living, breathing, ongoing battle for dominance in the universe. A player joins a House and stats are realtime updated to what % of the universe is split between the Houses {you can change Houses}. You can choose to defend or attack based on what planet you decide to play on and which House is in control. Once enough players gather together a game is started from the lounges. Conquest has some 60 planets in different stages of control at any given time and each planet has its own set of rules, which change the strategy. It is safe to say that Conquest will be very popular in 2005 online gaming. In conclusion, the overall single-player is short with around 10 hours, but its varied gameplay on many different planets with a Boss battle here and there. That MechSpider Boss was extremely well done. The missions overall are intense enough to want to play them more than once, but if you have XBL and like online gaming this title is for you. I see many gamers enjoying this game better than Halo 2 and I think that says alot.
