After watching the trailer for the new Steel Battalion, I couldn't help but notice the strange use of pseudo-WWII clothing for the tankers in control of the mechs. This strange mix prompted me to write this article that people have already predetermined their opinion on, are Mech games shooters?
Or come to think of it, are Mech games even considered real games to most sites? It's people like Gametrailers and IGN that almost every single japanese or western made mech game, that in their reviews are tossed aside as either trashy or just not fun. Me and some of my friends beg to differ that mech games (even the cheesy generic gundam ones) can be plenty fun if you like blowing stuff up with cool-looking vehicles. Is it just me or do people at IGN and Gametrailers just don't understand the general authestic that mech games bring?
How does making mech games cool any different from people wanting to play Darth Vader in a Star Wars game? I also think I went on a side-rant here....
Getting back to the topic at hand, I can see why people don't tend to call mech games straight out shooters, even though most of the games are about shooting and blowing up enemies. I know that you could kind of call Mech games a "popular niche" due to their widespread yet generic treatment. Gundam, Macross, Evangelion, and other Japanese titles show that people love a good mech story, and while most of these plots are psycho-pilot driven with horrendously driven counter-and-co cliches, getting into a mech and feeling like God is nowhere close to being overrated to the people who enjoy a good nuke-down.
And that's probably why determining the real genre for Mech games, besides just calling them mech games is somewhat of a draw. Mech games are technically a type of shooter called shoot-em-ups, due to the fact that unlike shooters that you only kill dozens of people, Mech games are all-out slay-fests that by the end of the game...you've probably depopulated a good chunk of the world (lol). That's the thing though, even though you're "the good guy", you're pretty much have created all-out and gun-ho genocide against the waves of almost endless enemies. That and while the stories set you up as being "a tactical asset", there's nothing really tactical of desolating a whole vicinity of cities or otherwise.
Probably the only real difference between mech games is how fast your mechs go, and how god-like your weapons are. Take it from me that games that feature Wing Zero from Gundam Wing, that using a special weapon from that thing could end a good string of bad guys (or in the show a whole freaking space colony). While the games talk about morals, there's nothing really moral about using a super-vehicle to blow up entire regions of the world. You can't really feel sorry for the good guys or bad guys if the only thing you both do is kill everything and anything you see lol. That and mostly all the characters are crazy or psychopathic. If the term for it is PTSD, then these guys have it "over 9000"!
I mean, the only real games known to be "typical shooters" and a bit over-the-top are Call of Duty, Id games, and Bioshock...but are they really comparable to the insanity and downright surreality of Mech games....No. And that's probably another reason why people might find appealing, is the insanity of the characters, dialogue, and situations that are a type of cheese you can't get anywhere else. Probably why IGN and GT hate the games, it's not their favorite kind of cheese.
Well, I think that's about it to be done, unless you want endless drivel.
Thanks for reading, stay tuned!
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