Armored Core V

It's not as bad as I had expected with all the bad reviews out there. One thing i will say though is i wouldn't rent this game it is by far more of a game to own than rent. I say this because it is for all intents and purposes AC:online, and it's a little bit had to get into an online styled game when you are only renting it :P although you can play offline it is designed to be logged in at all times.

The game is definately one for a hard core gamer - I mean that in the most specific way. This game requires time to play, time to learn and time to actually expand and reveal its hidden depths. On the surface this game falls flat on its face, the menus are alien, the navigation is very different to other game menus and it dosent do a great job of explaining itself. The graphics are mediocre at best, bland, boring and mainly the same set piece over and again. The controls are clunky, aukward in the most contradictingly oversensitive way and the actual mapping of the controller is not much like other games which makes it a bit of a chore to learn. Theres a comment somewhere on hre that talks about not being able to change the Y-axis (up n down) I play all my games goofy so for me pressing down tilts the camera up and up tilts the camera down. I dont know if this is the games default and the other person couldnt change this to standard setting - becasue ive set my preference to be automatic (through the xbox settings). However I do symathise because like I mentioned before the menus are pretty aukward, it might actually be that it was hard to find the Y axis setting as opposed to it not being there. The story is kind of....pants...and it didnt make much sense, the voice acting is was funny and remenicent of 'I hope it's not Chriiiiiis' blood!!' ;) However after chipping away at this increasingly frustrating game, there is a fantastic amount of content, and the game is so poorly sold on its genius that it has definately suffered. The multiplayer is as close to a territory based MMO as we have on the xbox and the hard core of the fans appear to be on this constantly, battling over sectors etc. This is great to get involved in although at first its frustrating as a total noob! Not everybody (the 24/7 hardcore AC gamer) is understanding of this, on the whole the community seems like a decent enough bunch. It's only a game at the end of the day. The gameplay starts to change as you progress though some very basic story missions, these are frustrating, but vey quickly you begin to unlock new AC piece to kit out your AC with new improved equipment, guns, arms, legs, core, shouder mounts, and each of these unlocked can be customized and upgraded over and over again. This includes customizing camo patterns and colours of your AC, creating your own logos as decals on your AC. Choosing between different play styles by upgrading the AC, example - you can be highly mobile, fast and zipping about the map, you can play as a stealthy (as stealthy as a 60 foot robot can be....) sniper role or you can take heavy armour, massive guns and forgo mobillity to become a heavy support. It can be team based and Its actully an incredibly complex game with so many of the little multiplayer tweaks and ideas that these so called 'best shooters this generation' are lacking. You can request to join a team/squad/clan or whatever you want to call them or you can huck it as a lone mercenary and post your services onto a type of notice board. From here a people are battling or doing missions they can hire you to assist (and vice versa you can hire mecs to join you on any of your story missions)- I expect this idea was great at first but given the low count of live players now it can be a delay in the missions as a merc...or indeed none atall. That dosent mean you cant play though, you just need to go it alone. This is where the game bascicaly shoots itself in the foot...for the right reason! People who like the AC series AND who have time and patience to put into this game will love it, but, as a standalone single player experience for achievement hunters, quick fix gamers and people who have better things to do with their lives than build up exp and unloock weapons for the AC....then it's boring slow and the only incentive to keep playing is to upgrade your AC so that you can progress through the boring and slow game. It's a shame because theres somthing about watching the faction maps territory wars that makes the game so much more interesting and wanting to be involved in it. Other games have tried it but failed (lost planet 2 factions war mode) This game, for me basically boils down to being compex, time consuming and you realy have to be into it to learn how to ply it before you enjoy it. I dont agree with nearly all of the reviews, they seem to be by people who have not understood the premise of the game or put time into it enough to understand its not a rubbish game - its just not their TYPE of game and just possibly they are so used to the dumbed down shooter of the main stream that somthing that requires a fair bit of effort and time is not worth doing. Thats fair enough and not a slant at them personally, because i have better things to do as well, but, I could see the potential of this game and it was definately sucking me in. IF you have time to invest in learning the game, getting through the frustrating period of the game and to take part in the mulitplayer then its probably a game you would enjoy! If not, then to be honest, I wouldnt even bother renting it and would remove it from your rental list or you will feel hard done by, posssibly bemused, lose faith in our religion or possibly convert to one that offers you an interprative expination to wether or not a game can be this bad before you then leave another low star review :D

Worst xbox title ever.... this is the first time i have given a negative review. Every game has some element of positivity surrounding it....but this...this is like im sitting on the playstation 2 or even ps1, common guys i could have pulled something better out my backside! I only gave it half a star because i didnt want the cd it was printed on to feel too embarrassed every time it gets put into an xbox.

If you enjoy the whole Big Mech kinda scene where you are piloting a huge robot with lots of weapon choices then this is the game for you. However for me I just found the game a bit clunky, didn't enjoy the type of story line, graphics were ok but what did it in for me was the type of missions you had which was pretty much - Load map ...... Kill 20 of them and 4 of them.....Complete. Next Mission. -Load map.... Kill 25 of them, 6 of them and 1 of them....and so on.

Still its and easy sit back game and if its your type of thing you will enjoy it, but I do recommend looking up some online gameplay clips before you decide to rent.

Dire. Just dire. Admittedly no one plays and Armored Core game for the story, but I don't think I could even tell you what this one was about. The controls are terrible. Overly complicated and confusing. Stupid floaty robots with giant shin pads everywhere. So bad that I've lost any will to continue writing this review. And I thought Armored Core 2 was a pretty OK game.