Here’s some news for fans of massive fighting robots. If you are gagging for some metal-on-metal online action exclusively on your Xbox 360, then perhaps Namco Bandai’s just-announced mech-fighter Mobile Ops: The One Year War is going to be all of your dirtiest, over-sized robotic dreams all rolled into one.
Check out the first screens, which SPOnG has just received: they make us want to clamber right up into the head of a big robot and smash the living daylights out of other Metal Mickies the world over.
The game is described as "...a next-generation mechanized shooter exclusively for the Xbox 360 …. [featuring] beautifully detailed graphics, a wide array of giant mobile suits, and intense multi-player combat to deliver an exhilarating experience in mechanized warfare."
The story – always kind of incidental to the main action in Mech-bashing - opens with the space colonists' brutal battle for independence from The Earth Federation: “Advanced ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) has rendered range sensors and communications useless, resulting in the rise of new war machines called mobile suits. These ultimate instruments of destruction, capable of metal-clashing hand-to-hand combat, completely redefine modern warfare.”
Oh, here we go! Modern warfare has been re-defined AGAIN! By huge robotic machines. Yoshi Niki, business director at Namco Bandai Games America Inc., had the following to say about the title: "With dramatic cockpit views and exquisitely detailed mobile suits, we fully expect 'Mobile Ops' to immerse gamers into a futuristic world where giant mechas loom against a war-torn horizon…. players can choose to engage enemies on foot, in vehicles or in mobile suits."
Storyline aside, Mobile Ops Team played over Xbox Live is sure to be a winner. The game also promises loads of customisation options, including beam sabres, heat hawks, and other melee weapons. From the looks of these first screens, the highly detailed HD graphics - right down to the brown rust on metal and stress damage from combat – promise to deliver a Mech-fighting, steel-on-steel orgy of pretend violence, the likes of which has never been seen before.