Kinect to Steel Battalion for Full Enjoyment.

<----[ Some of you may remember a game called "Steel Battalion." Well this isn't it, you would know this by realizing "Heavy Armor" was written at the bottom]







Steel Battalion. Now there's a title that saw explosive populatirty the moment  they dromped the bombshell that was it's title. [C'mon, admit it. It's got a ring to it] But what hooked people was what the game was all about. It's a "Mech" Simulator. You may also remember the ridiculous controller for the game.

             [Ridiculous Controller] ---------->

Even though the controller was huge, and had a ton of buttons. It wasn't really that complicated.
It just looked complicated. What kept you from it was the price. Sucker set you back a C-Note.






See, Steel Battalion was shooting for the undone. They were building a simulator for Mech warfare unlike any before them. So. First off, they put you in a small building sized tank with legs.

  <-----[Building sized Tank with Legs. "Don't get under it's feet Timmy!"]



When you look at war machine of that caliber you think power, or possibly you see absurdity at the concept... or both. Well the developers saw power, but they also looked deeper. What would it take to drive one of those? So they built that mega controller, then they did this to your screen and gave you one amazing H.U.D.

                [Heads Up Display] ---->


Look complicated? It was, but a good complicated. If you had an attention span longer than three seconds and the willingness to work through the learning curve, you could master a monster tank with legs; and then shoot crap with it.

For most people, the price was a no sale. Or the difficulty in just "WALKING" was too much, once again, maybe both. If you didn't watch your center of gravity. Your Mech dropped to the ground like Godzilla on an oil-slick. [Aww... Did the Mech Fall down?] So watching your gyro was just one tiny piece to the puzzle. You had fuel, and arms expenditures to monitor. If you didn't, you're Mech no longer worked. You were out of gas, or out of bullets/Rockets, Or both. That made you the largest punching bag in history for any A.I. or apposing player in the game; and they loved to full you full of lead. [Besides, who did enjoy the sick pleasure of shooting the crap out of some noob who can't stop falling over....]

<---- [Op... well there goes Timmy.]


With the culmination of the game's price of around the standard $60 bucks, plus the Ben Franklin friendly Remote; [I.e. $100 dollars]
On top of that the difficulty in basic movement, then people go and shoot at you. You've got one of the toughest Simulators on the market for the average gamer. It was fun for those who master it, frustrating for those adept enough to crash; and downright infuriating for those who couldn't even manage to crash properly. [Because they couldn't figure out how to turn the Mech ON] Seriously, there was a Start-Up sequence many didn't figure out right off, or even later. They had to buy a strategy guide and read the section under. "How To Turn On Your Mech."

So yeah, ambitious. Awesome, and Hard. It just didn't pull people in enough and Steel Battalion went to the way side while games with far less complicated control schemes soldiered on. Most people don't want to go to school to learn how to play a single title for their computer.

Well, they heard you're cries. Microsoft is trying to help out. "Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor" is coming to the X-Box 360 and will utilize the standard Xbox Remote in-tandem with the Kinect. You'll be able to mix operations and commands in a more simplified way by mixing direct manipulation of the remote and visual gestures the Kinect will read and act on.

I'll tell you right off. I haven't jumped on to the Kinect Bandwagon and I'll tell you why. I don't want to be a human remote. I don't want to stand in my room and flash my hands and body about to make the Avatar do junk...
I don't have a problem with a controller and I don't understand why so many want to desperately remove the controller from the players hands. [Even a Baseball player still has to hold a bat, and a Foot-Ball payer still needs pads.] That's just me though. Aside from that the Kinect had little glitches and errors and it doesn't allow for rapid, high action game-play with the accuracy a Mouse and Keyboard or Controller offer. But maybe the Pacing of Steel Battalion and the right programing and you could have yourself one of the sweetest simulators on the console to date.

It really comes down to how you feel about it, but even I, a skeptic over the actual quality of fun you can gain from what feels like a gimmicky gaming mechanic, see potential from this. With constantly improving technology, it can only get better.

Below is a the debut Trailer for the Game. Just remember it's a Sim. They're going for mechanics and controls. Not Micheal Bay quality CG. Now where that'd be nice, we're just talking about "feel."

 

 Later!

-Fox