For me, it started with Star Blazers (Space Battleship Yamato) and Battle of the Planets (Science Ninja Team Gatchaman). When my big brother got a hold of other shows that never made it to the US, we were entranced and amazed with the quality of the animation and the power of the story lines. He had everything, the tapes, the posters, the toys, the albums (you know, those things your parents listened to music on), everything. Consequently, Japanese anime was a big part of my life growing up.
When I first heard about Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, my mouth started watering and I was anxious as all hell to get a copy. Other games tried to incorporate the feeling of Japanime, but never have really come close. I knew that this was gonna be good. It had to be.
Watching the movie at the beginning of the game, I was transferred back to grade school, sitting in my brother's room watching the opening credits to a brand new show that had just been shipped in from overseas. The ambiance was the same: the music (the theme song is in Japanese, of course), the action, the way everything speeds up and culminates in a perfect chaotic climax; they even had a bunch of pencil sketches just like you'd see during the commercials for the shows. I was a kid again, getting my first look at another new show that was sure to blow my mind.
These guys did an excellent job of recreating the look and feeling of a Japanime creation. The characters are your typical show's cast. You have the white-haired father figure in command, the good looking bad guy with long-hair, everything you would expect. Even the story line contains all the aspects of a typical show. The angst: the main player has lost his love, brother and childhood friend at the hands of the enemy; the soap opera: he is now dating his daed love's sister, there's a connection between him and the bad guy, etc.(I don't want to give away too much); and even the cheesiness: he has to find a squeaky toy (which shamefully promotes a demo of another Monolith game included on the C.D.) to rescue a lady's cat so she will open the way for him. (The painful part about this is the squeaky toy gets set as the default high weapon, so if you run out of ammo during the heat of a battle, you switch to the squeaky toy. And, as far as I can tell, you can't get rid of it. So make sure you keep an eye on your ammo! There's nothing worse than hearing, "Blam, blam, blam, click, squeak! Oh shit!")
Shogo uses the LithTech engine which is free-flowing almost to a fault (almost). It moves so well with the slight turning of the mouse that it is some times difficult to stop where you want to. (For this die-hard Quake II fan, it took some getting used to.) The maps have you running as either a mech or a person in both single and multi-player. My only pseudo-bitch about the game is there aren't enough mech levels. It seems I do one level in the mech for every two on foot in single-player. I like the on-foot missions, but I prefer to be in the mech. There's just nothing quite like the feeling of towering over the cars and people, making incredibly large explosions and jumping over four stories to run around on top of buildings. It's quite empowering and can give an "invincible" feeling that can be detrimental to survival. ("I'm so big nothing can touch me. Uh, except that rather large gun about to blow my head off!")
The weapons are hilariously fun and effectively *big*. The Bullgut shoots three rockets that have the "cartoon spin" on them making it extremely difficult to aim over great distances, but are really effective in somewhat smaller maps. There are sniper weapons that are amazingly smooth and useful in both mech and on-foot maps. (The bullet holes stick around for about two minutes which can give insight as to where that sniper taking potshots at you is hiding.) There are bouncing grenades, explosives that will stick to the enemy and all sorts of fun things that go boom in amazingly detailed ways. You can blow up just about everything (cars, signs, etc.). During deathmatch I frequently lose sight of the enemy from all the smoke and debris in the air.
The only drawbacks to the game that I have found are the incredible load time and the internet play. The levels take FOREVER to load. I can start the game, go get a cup of tea, come back and still be waiting. It's worth the time, but it gets rather annoying when you are in a tricky spot and you have to wait for the damn game to load again and again each time you die. As for the internet play, Monolith released the game KNOWING about the on-line troubles. This is very upsetting to me. If they knew they game had problems, they should have fixed them BEFORE the release. They have since released a patch that fixes the problems but interferes with single-player. (Personally, I won't be installing that patch until I finish the single-player missions.) LAN play works rather well, so I guess it isn't THAT bad.
In spite of the drawbacks, this is a must game for any Japanime fan. Shogo is the epitome of the feeling that all mech games before this have been trying to reach, but never quite grasped. The only thing I keep waiting for is all the characters to turn into the short, high-pitched voiced comical versions of themselves (Super-Deformed, as it's called). Eh, maybe someone will make a mod for it. In the meantime, buy it; play it; love it. I sure did.
GAME DATA
Title: Shogo: Mobile Army Division
Category: Action
Publisher: Monolith
System Requirements: O/S: Windows 95/98
CPU: Pentium 166 or equivalent (Pentium II recommended)
Memory: 32 MB system RAM
Video System: Direct 3D 4 MB video card recommended (required for systems below Pentium 233)
Audio System: 100% DirectSound-compatible sound card
CD-ROM: 4x CD-ROM drive
