Reviewed: March 10, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Tecmo

Developer
Game Arts

Released: December 14, 2004
Genre: Action
Players: 1 / 8
ESRB: Teen

7
4
5
6
5.8

Supported Features:

Xbox Live Features

You see, this latest mech simulator is designed by Game Arts and merely published by Tecmo. My first experience with Game Arts was back in the days of Sierra Online who published their space shooters, Silpheed and Thexder, on the PC in the mid to late 80’s. Silpheed has since seen variations on the SegaCD and more recently, the PS2, but this latest offering simply pales in comparison to anything in the competing genres.

If you could rate a game entirely on fun then Allied Strike might stand a fighting chance but there is no overlooking the dismal graphics, poor sound, and uninspired gameplay going on here. If you can manage to look beyond these shortcomings you might just uncover a few hours of fun but is it really worth the effort?

Picking the proper AWGS for not only you but your wingmen becomes a very critical aspect of the game, even in the earlier levels. You’ll always want to pick something for yourself that is suited for the task at hand, but you’ll also want a companion mech that complements your own abilities.

Each mech has very unique abilities, usually in movement and combat. Faster mechs are usually light in armor so you need to make quick strikes, while the slow plodding monsters can rumble into the mix and take a beating while delivering their own pain and destruction.

The first-person cockpit view definitely puts Gungriffon in the simulation category, especially when compared to the third-person action games like MechAssault 2. The claustrophobic HUD provides all the necessary information while constricting your view to keep you on the edge of your seat for most of the mission.

Missions range from search and destroy to escort and defense but you will almost always be required to kill everything that moves. Maintaining a certain level of “realism” there are no random power-ups scattered about the mission area. Instead, you have to rely on a supply chopper that will fly in at designated areas along your mission path two or three times each mission.

You’ll get a verbal alert when the chopper is heading in and you have only moments to reach the location and get the supplies since the chopper only sticks around for 20-30 seconds. The enemy is almost always aware of the chopper’s presence and will be racing to that location to destroy it. Failure to rearm once is devastating to your mission; failure to rearm more than once and it’s game over.

Enemy AI is uncanny and if left alone to “think” for too long it will easily figure out your strategies. This is especially true in the defense missions where you must plan your strategy and act upon those plans almost immediately or the enemy will be upon you. If that happens you only have reflexes and luck to help you through.

Not only is the enemy AI extremely difficult, the overall game borders on the impossible, or at least it seems that way since there is no progression of difficulty. You’ll get your metallic ass handed to you on the second mission then skate through the next. The difficulty factor changes with each mission but never in the same direction.

Even HDTV progressive scan support can’t save this presentation. Allied Strike could just as easily have been a PS2 game and many might think it is. Targets are depicted as boxes long before you see their blurry models. The color palette is washed out and consists of a lot of green and brown, basically a very dull environment. The menus are cumbersome and awkward to navigate and not that interesting.

The framerate is inexplicably choppy at random intervals but there is always some slowdown with every mission, and given the nature of the simplistic graphics, this is just poor programming. I supposed you could explain it away by saying the movement of the mechs is choppy.

Sound effects are adequate with plenty of rocket and missile fire, explosions, radio chatter, and plodding metallic footsteps. None of it is really great, but it gets the job done with minimal effort and is fairly forgettable.

Equally as forgettable, or at least you’ll wish you could forget it is the musical score which is comprised of several track selections, all of which sound nearly identical. If any game screamed for custom soundtracks this is it. And it’s not that the music is bad, but a dozen variations of the same militaristic music starts to wear thin after a few hours.

You can play Allied Strike online or with a system link with up to eight players in deathmatch and team deathmatch modes. You can also team up with a buddy for cooperative campaign play, which offers a cool new approach to the game but also increases the aforementioned problems with the framerate.

Then again, if there is some nugget of old-school gamer lurking in your core being and you don’t mind outdated graphics and unbalanced gameplay then give this game a shot. With any luck it will be in the bargain bins soon enough.